Two Ohio Wesleyan Students Earn OWU Baran Fellowships to Support Their Graduate School Goals
By Cole Hatcher
Two Ohio Wesleyan University students have earned competitive Baran Fellowships to fund projects intended to make them stronger candidates for graduate school admission and post-graduate fellowships.
The newest recipients of the university-awarded Baran Fellowships are sophomores Kaniya Johnson of Columbus, Ohio, and Colby Sprague of Lancaster, Ohio.
Johnson, a Politics & Government major and Women’s & Gender Studies minor, plans to use her Baran Fellowship funds to support her participation in a three-week OWU Travel-Learning Course to Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Botswana. A future lawyer, Johnson will travel in May to complete coursework that she states will “broaden my global perspective and help me better understand how governance, race, gender, and postcolonial legal systems intersect with health, advocacy, and public policy. …
“As an aspiring attorney passionate about sports and entertainment law,” Johnson states in her Baran Fellowship application, “I have developed a clear roadmap for my career, which includes gaining foundational experience at a law firm, pursuing specialized education in law school, and applying for post-graduate fellowships.
“Each step of my journey reflects my commitment to excelling in this dynamic field, and the Baran Fellowship offers a transformative opportunity to accelerate my growth,” she concludes.
Sprague, a Zoology and Theatre major, will use his fellowship award to support his participation in a two-week OWU Travel-Learning Course to England in May to study “Britainistan: Literary and Religious Narratives of British Muslims.” “I firmly believe that this Travel-Learning Course would provide me with unmatched experience in all the areas that I would need to pursue my future plans in graduate school and with applying to national fellowships,” he states.
After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan, Sprague plans to pursue a doctorate in accessibility and design in the zoological field. Ultimately, he plans to help make zoos, museums, and similar spaces more accessible. His passion for this work ties back to high school when he earned a superior rating for his state science day project that sought to determine “The Model Model: What is the Most Effective Scientific Model for the Blind?”
“Thanks to my experiment, I was able to add vital information to the extremely small list of professional research done on science and disability,” he shares in his Baran Fellowship application. “Also thanks to my project, I was able to become a member of the Ohio Academy of Science and … the professor who I met at the beginning of my project agreed to help me publish my findings in two academic journals.”
Ohio Wesleyan’s Baran Fellowships were created in 2013 with a gift from graduate Jan W. Baran, Class of 1970, and his wife, Kathryn K. Baran, in recognition of the strong mentorship he received as an OWU student.
To be eligible for the fellowships, students must be in the university Honors Program or have an excellent academic record (usually a grade-point average of 3.7 or higher) with a high probability of success in a post-graduate fellowship competition. Recipients are able to use the funding to support travel-learning opportunities or individualized research or study connecting theory to practice.
Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s Baran Fellowships at owu.edu/Baran and more about the university’s Leland F. and Helen Schubert Honors Program at owu.edu/honors.
Source: OWU; Photo: Ohio Wesleyan sophomores Kaniya Johnson (left) and Colby Sprague earned fall semester Baran Fellowships, created to help students fund research, travel-learning, and other opportunities in support of their graduate school goals. (Photos by Bruce Heflin)
