Katy Finley

Davidson College Communications Office

Davidson College senior Katy Finley, a fluent Arabic speaker with an interest in the Middle East, has received a Marshall Scholarship, which will pay for two years of study toward a graduate degree at a British university. Marshall Scholarships are as competitive as the Rhodes Scholarships, and carry comparable benefits. Just 40 students were selected this year from among 900 applicants.

Ms. Finley is the seventh Davidson student ever to win a Marshall, and the first since 1990.

Raised in a working class environment in the small northern Wisconsin town of Boulder Junction, Ms. Finley won a John M. Belk Scholarship to attend Davidson, and has used the summer stipends available to Belk Scholars to develop the interests in gender studies and Arabic social and political systems that she will pursue through her Marshall Scholarship at either Oxford University or London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

“Ultimately, I plan to craft a thesis that analyzes the effects of Middle Eastern governments, civil society organizations, and international development organizations on gender dynamics,” Ms. Finley explained. “Through integration of political institutions and social citizenship, I hope to help empower Middle Eastern women and, by extension, their communities as a whole.”

She aspires to a career with an international nongovernmental organization in the Middle East, or work with the United Nations Development Fund for Women Arab States office on issues of governance, peace, and security in Arabic countries. “I am drawn to the holistic approach that these projects adopt because they combine policy work with civil society organizations to integrate awareness of gender concerns across different development and political sectors,” she said.

Those goals may seem lofty, but in Ms. Finley’s case they are well informed. She had no previous outstanding interest in Arabic studies, but signed up for the introductory language course almost haphazardly as a sophomore when her other choices of courses were filled. Something about the challenge of learning a very difficult language clicked within her, and she became more and more engaged with the subject.

In summer 2007 she decided to use her Belk Scholarship stipend to fund two months in Yemen studying Arabic. Last summer she again visited the Middle East, spending eight weeks studying Arabic in Aman, Jordan, and traveling for six weeks through Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

This fall she accompanied Professor of Political Science Ken Menkhaus to a week-long seminar in Djibouti about development and humanitarian issues, peacekeeping, and politics, culture and history in the Horn of Africa countries.

She judges her language fluency now as “intermediate to advanced.” “I can carry on a conversation, read a newspaper, and read a novel with a dictionary,” she said. She also watches Al Jazeera news on a satellite-fed television in the lounge of the Dean Rusk International Studies Program at Davidson, and watches You Tube clips of Arabic television shows.

Her mastery of the language, and her gender in the largely male-centric Arab nations, created extraordinary opportunities during her travels.

When shopkeepers or merchants first saw her, they spoke to her in English or a European language. “It would really surprise them when I replied in Arabic,” she said. “People got very excited. I would convince them in Arabic I didn’t want to buy anything, that I just wanted to speak with them. They would often end up serving me tea, or inviting me home for a family meal.”

The Marshall Scholarship Program began in 1953 as a gesture of gratitude to the people of the United States for the assistance that the UK received after World War II under the Marshall Plan. This highly competitive scholarship is a UK government-financed program that offers talented young Americans the chance to study for up to three years at a British university of their choice. Since the program’s inception there have been more than 1,500 Marshall Scholars.