Melendy Krantz (graduating in May with a double major in anthropology and politics) has received a Fulbright award to Bangladesh, and Amy Cohen (who graduated last May with a degree in theater arts management) has received a Fulbright award to the UK.
Melendy Krantz has been awarded a Fulbright grant to Bangladesh to do research on "Dainis and Midwives: Building Connections between Birth Attendants." Lendy will be studying birth centers in lower- and upper-class areas, and will be shadowing and interviewing birth attendants who work independently. She will work with the traditional birth attendants, or "dainis," who learn their skills through apprenticeships as well as the midwives who receive long-term, university-style training. She plans to study how women's subcultures and caregiver subcultures in Bangladesh interact, how they affect the role of birth attendants, and how they unite women by evoking intense emotions and a sense of community.
In addition to her studies at Ithaca College, Lendy is a professional labor and birth assistant. She is a Spanish interpreter for the Medicaid Obstetrical and Medical Services Program in New York, for which she serves as a mediator on cultural, linguistic, and personal levels. She is fluent in Bangla. Lendy plans on an eventual graduate degree in medical anthropology, with her Fulbright research providing the framework for her dissertation.
Amy Cohen has been awarded a Fulbright grant to the UK to do research on "Why Is Contemporary Circus a Prominent Art Form in the United Kingdom?" Her research will center on youth programming, resources for professional circus artists, and the upcoming 2012 Olympics in London. Amy founded ICircus which shares circus arts with the Ithaca community, is actively involved with the American Youth Circus Organization, and was the first intern accepted by the Circus Space, the UK's premiere circus school.
Amy plans on identifying and investigating the conditions that are enabling contemporary circus arts to develop as a prominent art form in the UK and then using these findings to advocate for the development of contemporary circus as an art form in the United States. Ultimately she hopes to establish a circus education and performing center here in the U.S. that provides circus education and outreach to all ages, abilities, and demographics.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20090417090145262