EUGENE, Ore. -- (Nov. 14, 2011) – University of Oregon graduate student Katie Dwyer is the first Mitchell Scholarship finalist in school history.
Dwyer, a second-year master’s student in the UO School of Law’s Conflict and Dispute Resolution program, is one of 20 finalists to qualify for the scholarship. Twelve scholarship recipients will be selected following interviews this week in Washington, D.C.
The Mitchell Scholarship, which is offered through the U.S.-Ireland Alliance, is named for former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who was instrumental in the Northern Ireland peace process. The scholarship committee looks for students who demonstrate academic excellence, leadership and community involvement.
Dwyer graduated magna cum laude from the Robert D. Clark Honors College with degrees in sociology and comparative literature in 2010. She was appointed one of the Phi Beta Kappa Oregon Six – awarded to students who exhibited excellence in upper-division liberal arts courses with high grade point averages. During her freshmen year, Dwyer took a class through the Inside-Out Program, in which university students go to prisons for classes with inmates.
The Inside-Out Program inspired Dwyer, who wrote her undergraduate thesis on the program and continued to work within the program. She is part of its national steering committee and works regionally to coordinate what classes are being taught. She also assists in teaching classes with new professors, and started a student-run book club for incarcerated youth.
During her time with the Inside-Out Program, Dwyer met her mentor, Associate Geography Professor Shaul Cohen, who encouraged Dwyer to apply to the Mitchell Scholarship.
“She has all these things you can see on paper – being one of the Oregon Six and valedictory for the Honors College, and all of those hallmarks of excellence that she’s accumulated along the way,” Cohen said. “It really is in the area of finding opportunities for herself and creating opportunities for others to be involved in new and innovative and significant ways that when I saw that, I said, ‘Katie is perfect for the Mitchell Scholarship.’
“It’s an award that’s not just based on smarts,” Cohen said. “It’s based on people who are going to be able to figure a way to make a change and to be a catalyst for others to make change. When I saw the array of activities that Katie had developed for herself and for others, I saw that was really a perfect fit.”
Dwyer’s other social justice work includes being a graduate teaching fellow for the Savage Committee on international relations and peace, where she works with Sister Helen Prejean during her campus visits, and working as a translator for Volunteers in Medicine, a doctor’s office for people without health insurance.
Dwyer is also involved in immigration issues, and has led trips through No More Deaths – a humanitarian aid organization – along the U.S.-Mexico border, providing aid to immigrants in need of resources and health care, and acting as a translator.
“What I’m really proud of and feel confident (about) going forward is that I’ve had these wonderful opportunities and experiences and then have used those to launch leadership opportunities to help other people have similar experiences,” Dwyer said.
Dwyer will head to Washington, D.C., this week for an interview that will determine if she receives the Mitchell Scholarship. As a Mitchell Scholar, she would spend a year in a masters program in Ireland or Northern Ireland, where she hopes to continue her pursuit of a career in social justice by studying international human rights law.
“Ireland is a really exciting opportunity because it’s so small and so recently involved in its own conflict that the academic world is closely tied in with policy and with organizations, and they really inform each other,” Dwyer said. “That’s really exciting to me, that the work that people are doing on the ground is being researched by the academy and informing policy. I’d love to be a part of that.”
Dwyer attributes much of her success to the support she has received from the UO community, and to what she has learned from Cohen.
“I find him to be one of the great leaders in social justice on this campus, and to be tremendously courageous in pursuing that in nonconventional settings,” Dwyer said. “He’s really inspired me to push forward with the idea that I someday hope to be a professor like him, who’s an incredibly inspiring teacher and researcher, but also very focused on social justice and making a difference.”
Dwyer said she feels honored to be the first Mitchell Scholarship finalist from the UO.
“I’ve felt so supported during my years here and I’ve so loved my education here,” she said. “I’d be thrilled to be an ambassador for this university and community. It’d be really special to be the first Mitchell Scholar from the University of Oregon.”
-- by Rachel Starr, UO media relations intern
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACT: Joe Mosley, UO media relations, 541-346-3606, jmosley@uoregon.edu