The university’s International Studies and Programs is seeking applicants who want to make a positive difference in their homelands.

Designed as a graduate studies capstone, the Thoman Fellowship Program prepares students to confront hunger and poverty in their communities.

Established in 1982, the program brings together advanced doctoral students from developing countries to address issues locally and back home.

“They gain a sense of what it takes to address poverty and hunger,” said Tom Carroll, faculty adviser for the program and a social science professor.

Fellows meet weekly as a group throughout the course of the academic year and they also volunteer at local agencies. Membership in the program carries with it a $3,000 stipend for the summer, fall and spring semesters of the program.

“It’s a combination of attending a weekly seminar, serving an internship and developing a concept paper for starting an activity,” Carroll said.

Past fellows have studied topics ranging from illiteracy in Egypt to education for the poor in China and land redistribution in Zimbabwe.

Dilson Antonio Bisognin, a fourth-year plant breeding and genetics doctoral student, said the program helped him with his work in south Brazil.

“I wanted to learn more theories of how to work with poverty,” said Bisognin, a professor at Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil.

“We try to help farmers by improving their houses and raising food production.”

Bisognin said he is researching ways to engineer potatoes, and he hopes his work will raise food production in Brazil - where the small family farm is being taken over by larger farms.

“If you can keep them in production, they have a better chance to survive,” he said.

Interested students can pick up applications in 207 International Center. The application deadline is March 1, 2001.