By Brooke Clayton, The Daily Iowan
Rita Guzmán was born and raised in Decorah, and her time at the University of Iowa has led her to Orlando, Florida, and Chicago with internships and Dublin and London with Study Abroad. Her next stop, now as an alumna, will be to Porto, Portugal, on a Fulbright Grant.
Guzmán will use a B.B.A. in marketing, minor in Portuguese, and certificate in international business to help higher-education students in Portugal tighten their grasp of the English language and culture. As her community-outreach aspect of the grant, she will create a music business club that will connect students to promoters and administrators at local music venues, giving Guzmán the chance to include her love of music to her time abroad.
Guzmán’s parents are from the Dominican Republic, and they’re responsible for much more than her head full of proud curls and her fluency in Spanish.
“My parents are very academic,” Guzmán said. “And they’ve always instilled the want and ability to travel.”
Her mother’s first trip to the U.S. was on a Fulbright Grant to study at Emory University, in Atlanta, and her father is on the faculty at Luther College in Decorah, where he directs the Jazz Orchestra and Jazz Program.
UI Professor Phillip Round, a Fulbright Faculty Committee member and two-time Fulbright winner himself, wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan that “as the member of a family who recently immigrated to Iowa, [Rita’s] personal experience suggested she would be good at relating to recent immigrants to Portugal, who are likely to be among her students.”