News and Events
Master's Fellow receives Boren Award
Julia A Vail, for fellows, 2013/06/20 07:33:54
Nicholas Enz, a Fellow in the Master of International Development Policy (MIDP) program, is the first student in the Sanford School of Public Policy to be awarded the Boren Fellowship for language and area studies abroad. As a result of the award, Enz will spend the 2013-14 academic year in Turkey studying the language and conducting research on social safety net programs with a special focus on Kurdish populations.
The Boren Awards provide U.S. undergraduate and graduate students with an opportunity to acquire language skills and experience in countries critical to U.S. national security. Since the program was created in 1994, over 5,000 students have received awards.
The program received a historically high number of applications this year. Out of 526 graduate applicants, Enz was one of only 110 to receive the award.
“It really was a dream come true,” Enz said. “I felt incredibly fortunate and excited for the opportunity to integrate my Turkish language and area studies interest with my degree in International Development Policy.”
Enz’s research will build on work that he completed during the MIDP program on a conditional cash transfer program in Turkey. These types of programs aim to reduce poverty by making aid conditional upon the recipients’ actions.
During the MIDP program, Enz was also able to pursue courses in economics, statistics and Turkish, which helped prepare him to apply for the Boren Fellowship.
“I appreciated the open-ended nature of the MIDP program and the exposure to a wide variety of subjects and analysis methods,” he said. “The program gave me access to valuable tools for policy analysis and problem solving.”
Enz said he also received advice and assistance with his Boren application from his MIDP professors, especially Rosemary Fernholz and Catherine Elkins.
Prior to joining the MIDP program, Enz spent four years in Azerbaijan – the first two years as a Peace Corps volunteer and the second two years working with Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, a media watchdog organization, and Save the Children.
During this time, he wrote reports and grant proposals to raise awareness of and help provide aid for imprisoned journalists. He also worked to help children in orphanages take an active role in their communities and make a successful transition to adulthood.
“We gave them a forum to discuss issues in their communities and raise those issues with the government,” Enz said.
In addition to the Boren, Enz is a recipient of the Paul D. Coverdell Fellowship, which provides returned Peace Corps volunteers with financial assistance for graduate study. He also was awarded the FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies) Fellowship by Duke University.
In exchange for funding, Boren Award recipients agree to work in the federal government for a period of at least one year. Enz plans to work for either the State Department or the U.S. Agency for International Development when he returns to the U.S. in May 2014. Having completed an internship with the State Department in Kazakhstan during the MIDP program, Enz hopes to conduct research that will help shape policy regarding Central Asia, the Caucasus region and Turkey.
“A lot of what we did was similar to what journalists do – reporting on issues important to the U.S. government,” Enz said. “It was a very fast-paced environment, but I enjoyed it.”
