When I first arrived in Florence, I knew that I wanted to be able to give back to the community in some way, I just wasn’t sure how. Lucky for me, my answer came quickly. My college informed us that they were offering the opportunity to volunteer at an Elementary school helping teach English.

Abigail Grilli, a UI graduate with a B.A. in social studies education, is the winner of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Greece for 2016-17.

Harry Leeds had expected students to be shy about writing poetry in English, the way any student might be nervous about writing and sharing personal work in a second language. When it came to the 20 Kazakh students in his poetry workshop, however, he was wrong: “Some people didn’t want to share with the group,” Leeds says, “but everyone wrote.”

Quinn Hejlik has been awarded a 2015-16 Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to Russia to work as an English Teaching Assistant where he hopes to develop a deeper understanding of the culture and language of Russia, and to extend the same understanding of English language and American culture to Russian students. A native of Omaha, NE, Quinn will graduate from the University of Iowa this spring with a B.A. in history and international studies.