Warner, Eastman students win Fulbrights

Caurie Anne Miner, who received a master's degree from the Warner School in May, and Marjorie Roth, a doctoral student in musicology and flute performance at the Eastman School, have received prestigious Fulbright grants for overseas graduate study.

Miner's grant, which will provide a stipend and cover related costs such as room, board, and travel, will allow her to spend eight months in the Republic of Hungary starting in September. She will teach American literature at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, work as an academic adviser, and join a research team studying gifted primary school children at the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. All programs will be conducted in English.

Miner plans to pursue doctoral studies and will choose from among American literature, language and literacy, and counseling psychology. She said the program in Hungary is ideal because it will give her "a great opportunity to experience all three."

Roth will travel to Vienna, Austria, in September to begin researching her doctoral dissertation on a little-known piece of music--the motet cycle Prophetia Sibyllarum--by Orland di Lasso (1532-1594), a great Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance. The manuscript to this work is held in Vienna; Roth's research also will take her to Prague and Munich.

Prophetia Sibyllarum is "a big enigma in music history," Roth said; no one knows why the work was composed. Her Fulbright will allow her to learn more about the piece and share her findings with others.

The Fulbright program was established by Congress 50 years ago to increase understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Thousands of college seniors and graduate students compete each year for the grants. Last year, only 830 Fulbright grants for graduate study were awarded nationwide; 1998-99 figures are expected to be similar.