Lauren Crawford '16 Receives Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship

Lauren Crawford ’16, a comparative literature major, has been awarded a 10-month Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Germany. Crawford will begin her fellowship in Saxony in September.

At Oberlin, Crawford regularly wrote for Wilder Voice, a magazine for creative nonfiction and longform journalism. She served as a representative for the comparative literature major and as an academic ambassador, a position in which she assisted in advising incoming first-year students. She also taught an ExCo on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment in her sophomore year, tutored French at Oberlin High School, and hosted shows on the student-run radio station, WOBC.

Crawford, who has studied French, German, and Latin while at Oberlin, says her love of languages was a primary driver in applying to Fulbright. “I applied to this fellowship because I saw it as a way to gain hands-on experience teaching English, as well as a way to deepen my own knowledge of German,” she says. “I chose Germany specifically because I've had a long-standing interest in German culture and history.”

Crawford says her desire to teach in Germany also stems from her larger academic interest concerning how “countries with legacies of collectively experienced trauma in recent memory come to terms with those narratives, particularly through education.”

“I look forward to being able to witness how German public schools communicate those narratives in the classroom, particularly right now given the refugee crisis in Europe,” she says.

While she is not yet sure of her plans following her fellowship, Crawford says she is considering pursuing a career in education, ideally relating to how issues of genocide and atrocity should be taught in schools.