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EDUCATION Ashland High alumna awarded prestigious Fulbright grant 2012 graduate Whitaker is headed to Madrid Comment By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Social News Paige Whitaker fell so hard for Spain while studying abroad there during her sophomore year at the University of Oregon that she desperately wanted to go back. Now, she will. For nine months, free of charge. And as an added bonus, the experience will make her even more employable that she already will be following a stellar academic performance at UO. Whitaker, 22, who graduated from Ashland High School in 2012, has received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to Spain, courtesy of the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. A double-major who’s carrying a 3.99 GPA, Whitaker will graduate with honors in both majors in June and three months later, in September, fly out to Madrid, where she’ll work as a teaching assistant and serve as a cultural ambassador between the United States and Spain. “For the first day (after finding out),” she said, “it didn’t even feel real.” It’s very real, though, and it didn’t happen by accident. Whitaker, who competed for the Ashland High swim team for three years and will work as a manager this summer at Daniel Meyer Pool, is the definition of an overachiever. She’s the vice president of an honors society called Order of Omega which focuses on community service and leadership, and is the projects director for Nourish International, for which she helped a school in Uganda gain access to clean water. Whitaker’s majoring in both international studies and romance languages and has a minor in economics. She’ll graduate magna cum laude. For her senior thesis, which probably helped her win the Fulbright, Whitaker analyzed a Spanish education policy and its treatment of immigrant students — she’ll defend the paper before a committee of professors later this month. Whitaker began the intensive application process for the Fulbright last summer. She wrote two essays, rounded up “a bunch” of recommendations and endured a Spanish language evaluation. “The essays are only one page each,” she said, “but I probably had around 20 different drafts of each one because you have to be able to pack in every single thing you want to say in one page and you have to make every single sentence count and every single sentence perfect. So, yeah, it’s a little harder than you think.” Then, it was on to the interview phase. In September, Whitaker was interviewed by three professors and UO’s Fulbright advisor. They asked her questions about her application and her qualification. Some of the questions were posed in Spanish, which was a challenge even for Whitaker. “I would say that I can say whatever I need to say (in Spanish),” she said. “I definitely don’t have the proficiency of a native, but I can get around and am pretty fluent.” Whitaker must have done all right because she learned on Jan. 15 that she was a semifinalist and in March that she was a finalist. Then, on March 17, she was on her way to Portland with her then-boyfriend, who was driving, when she checked her email and was floored with the good news. “I was compulsively checking my email like 60 times a day, so when I got it I was in shock,” Whitaker said. “I was in the car and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I got it. I can’t believe it.’ It definitely felt surreal because it was such a build up. There are so many rounds of it and there’s just so much work that you put into it. So it was definitely a surprise and I was really relieved as well.” Four hundred and nine people applied for the Fulbright grant in Madrid and Whitaker was one of 47 who won the prestigious honor. According to a Fulbright press release, Whitaker is one of 1,900 U.S. citizens who “will teach, conduct research and provide expertise” abroad during the 2016-17 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Now, Whitaker is counting down the days to her departure. In Spain, her primary responsibility will be to assist a teacher, helping the students with their English. She has yet to find out in which classroom she’ll be placed, but has a hunch about the subject. “I’m assuming they’ll probably put me in social studies because that was where my area of focus was in college,” Whitaker said. “I’ll be basically kind of like a conversation partner for them, facilitating cultural information as well so that they can kind of understand what it’s like to live in the United States.” The grant includes two more components. Whitaker will also help prepare students for a United Nations simulation, for which her students will compete against other students. Finally, she said, the Fulbright program in Spain requires all the English teaching assistants to take on an outside project or internship — possibilities include the Red Cross or Amnesty International. Whitaker said she targeted Spain because she loves just about everything about it, including the languages, the diversity and the laidback lifestyle. One can take an hour-long train from Madrid to Barcelona and encounter an entirely new set of languages and customs, then take another two-hour train ride to the Basque country and experience different languages again, as well as a climate shift. “There’s just so much diversity,” she said. “And I also love the food, I love the art, I love the history, and I found when I was there that I would never get bored because there’s always something to do.” — Joe Zavala is a reporter for the Ashland Daily Tidings. Reach him at 541-821-0829 or jzavala @dailytidings.com. Follow him on Twitter @Joe_Zavala99. By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Joe Zavala for the Mail Tribune Posted May. 9, 2016 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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