Baruch Sponsors Two Colin Powell Fellowships for Internships In the State Department
Sponsored by Former Ambassador Carl Spielvogel, Internships Aim for Students with High GPAs, Fluency in Languages, and Interest in International Affairs
BARUCH COLLEGE,
NEW YORK, NY – Baruch College has announced two winners
of its first Colin Powell Fellowships, which will fund two
high-achieving Baruch juniors or seniors during eight-week
internships working for the State Department in Washington
or for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York,
depending on where they are needed.
Requirements for the Colin Powell Fellowships are that students
have a 3.5 GPA or higher, be fluent in English and at least
one other language, preferably more, and have an interest
in foreign policy and international affairs.
The winners were Ariel Krinshpun and Andreea Ursu. Krinshpun,
a Baruch senior from Brooklyn and Honors student with a 3.8
GPA, is an accounting major and mathematics minor, a chess
enthusiast, and a fluent speaker of Russian and Hebrew with
some proficiency in Spanish. Ursu is a junior corporate communication
major and sociology minor from Manhattan, with a 3.6 GPA,
who speaks Romanian, Spanish, French and even a little Mandarin;
who has worked as a volunteer for the UN Development Program
and for the Weissman Center for International Business as
the AIESEC work abroad coordinator; and who is part of the
CUNY honors program. She has studied abroad in Rome, Cairo
and Shanghai.
The Fellowhips have been funded by former Ambassador Carl
Spielvogel, who served as US Ambassador to the Slovak Republic
in 2000 and 2001, and who received his BBA from Baruch in
1952, along with an Honorary LLD in 1984. He is also an Honorary
Trustee of the Baruch College Fund.
“The intention of the Colin Powell Fellowships and the
internship program is to interest outstanding young people
in the possibility of pursuing careers in the State Department,”
Ambassador Spielvogel said. “Since Colin Powell is a
graduate of City College we thought it would be appropriate
to name the fellowships after him. We spent five hours interviewing
the final candidates and it was a most difficult decision,
for they were all truly outstanding. It is our hope that if
the program works successfully this year, it can expanded
in the future.”
The competition was administered by the Weissman Center for
International Business at Baruch, and judged by Ambassador
Spielvogel along with former Ambassador to Canada and to the
EU Thomas Niles, who is on the Weissman Center’s Advisory
Board; Dean of Baruch’s Weissman School of Arts and
Sciences Myrna Chase; Professor of Finance and Director of
the Weissman Center Terrence Martell; and Deputy Director
of the Weissman Center Lene Skou.
There were fifty applicants for the two prizes, and six finalists.
The four runners up were: Joanne Wong, junior, accounting;
Caroline Kim, junior, finance and international politics;
Richard Leung, junior, pre-med English and chemistry; and
Gennady Rudkevich, junior, political science and economics.
Contact:
Vince Passaro,
Director of Public Relations
212.802.2916
Zane Berzins
News Director
212.802.2881
