Several outstanding Broncos are pursuing highly competitive scholarships this spring, including one Truman finalist and six Fulbright semifinalists. Over the past five years, Boise State’s Honors College has doubled the number of students who receive scholarships while more than doubling the amount of scholarship money available to those students.
This year’s Truman finalist is Halima Hamud, a junior majoring in political science and one of 193 finalists from 845 applications. As she mentioned in an episode for Beyond The Blue, Hamud hopes to build a career helping refugee women have better access to education and professional development opportunities. She helped found the African Student Association on campus and has been heavily involved through the Multilingual Student Association and other university organizations.
Nearly half of Boise State’s Fulbright scholarship applicants become semifinalists. The six semifinalists for English teaching assistant awards abroad are:
- Olivia Bates (elementary education, ’20) – Indonesia
- Daniel Hopkins (history and social science secondary education, ’19) – Netherlands
- Wayne Hamilton (history, ’21) – Bosnia
- Sandra Siharath (psychology, ’21) – Laos
- Ben Geffon (English, linguistics, global studies, ’21) – Kazakhstan
- Julia Donegan (political science, ’19) – Malaysia
Winners of the Truman and Fulbright awards will be announced in the coming months.