Ocean City Resident Ciara Barrick Earns Fulbright Grant

An Ocean City resident is one of two recent Stockton University graduates who has earned a grant from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, one of the academic world’s most prestigious awards, to teach English abroad in the coming year.

Ciara Barrick received an English Teaching Assistantship for an academic year in Cyprus. Barrick will work as a cultural ambassador to enhance relations between Cyprus and America.

In addition to her teaching assistantship, she has been offered an internship at the Cyprus Literary Journal, “Cadences.”

Barrick graduated May 9 with a B.A. in Literature. She minored in Ancient Greek. She worked as a tutor in Stockton’s Writing Center, which she credits for preparing her to teach students of various levels and nationalities.

“My experiences here at Stockton University, particularly those under the guidance of Dr. David Roessel (professor of Greek Language and Literature), prepared me for the Fulbright,” Barrcik said. “I have been so fortunate to have had a number of travel abroad experiences, including Greece and Cyprus in November of 2013. My experiences within the Literature program, as well as the opportunity to take Ancient Greek lessons, have been unparalleled.”

Barrick applied for a Fulbright in Cyprus because she was interested in the “cultural footprint” that resulted from the divide between the Greek-administered South and the Turkish-administered North, which she experienced on her first visit there.

She said she looks forward to integrating herself into another culture and gaining greater knowledge of Cypriot art and literature.

She also said she could see herself working at a journal or magazine, or working at a museum in the future.

“I’m not ready for graduate school,” Barrick said. “When you apply to a Ph.D. program, you sort of need to have a project in mind. Right now, I have so many interests that I want to explore, and that is what I hope to do during this Fulbright experience.”

Kaidesha Pinkney of East Windsor, NJ, who earned her B.A. in Economics, was awarded an English Teaching Assistantship for an academic year in Malaysia. Pinkney will leave for Malaysia in January 2016 and will be there for 10 months to teach English conversation and grammar as a teaching assistant.

Both teaching assistants will be assigned to teach in a grade in a K-12 school which has not yet been determined.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

The attached image of Ciara Barrick was provided by Stockton University.