Research and volunteer work reward student with scholarship

Just ask Ashley Schiller, a senior history major at Texas A&M, whose impressive resume includes a semester in New York City, an undergraduate research fellowship and now the Bernice E. Powell scholarship.

Schiller, from Radium Springs, N.M., is a member of the Texas A&M Honors Student Council and a coxswain (member who sits in the stern and coordinates the rowing rhythm and power) for the Crew team. She plans to graduate from Texas A&M in May 2008, work for Teach for America and then attend graduate school. Schiller’s accomplishments both in and outside of school were acknowledged with her appointment to the Bernice E. Powell Endowed Scholarship for the 2007-2008 academic year.

In Bryan-College Station, Schiller volunteers at Habitat for Humanity and Phoebe’s Home, a center for victims of domestic violence and their children.

“I volunteered for Phoebe’s home specifically to work with the children,” Schiller said. “I gathered volunteers from Honors Student Council, and we helped rebuild the playground for safety and the playroom by re-staining the kitchen cabinets.”

Schiller also spent the spring 2007 semester in New York, where she took classes at New York University and worked for Revlon Run Walk for Women, a fundraiser for women’s cancer. She studied urban environments, which included taking courses on museums and galleries as well as homelessness and poverty.

“The classes included fieldwork experience such as HOPE count 2006, during which volunteers walk the streets at night looking for and interviewing homeless individuals,” Schiller said.

In the fall, Schiller will continue her studies as an Undergraduate Research Fellow. This student research program, sponsored by the Office of Honors and Academic Scholarships, pairs an undergraduate student with a faculty member on a research project. The students present their research findings at a special symposium in the spring and their thesis is published and placed in the university’s main library.

Schiller plans to work with English Professor David McWhirter and research digital photography and its effect on the media.

“I hope to investigate how the proliferation of cell phone cameras and photo doctoring software have affected journalistic integrity, and how this will alter the historians perspective in the future,” Schiller said.

Powell, formerly from Houston, died in 1997 but stipulated in her will that a trust be created to endow a scholarship for the benefit of individuals who desired a college education but faced financial need.

-30-

Contact: Erin Wood, 979.862.4879, erinwood@libarts.tamu.edu