#97-04-12
For Release: 4-10-97
Contact: Peter Bailley

Karla Trester will be getting more stamps in her passport this year, as she explores the dilemma of global waste management.

Trester, an independent Environmental Studies major from Freeport, Illinois, will spend 1998 circling the Pacific Rim, conducting independent research, as part of a $18,000 grant from the Watson Fellowship Program. She will travel to Australia, Papua New Guinea and Singapore to study waste management and policy in the Pacific Rim.

Knox is the only college in Illinois included in the select group of 48 liberal arts colleges nationwide that are invited to nominate graduating seniors for Watson Fellowships. The Watson Foundation named Knox as a Participating Institution in the fellowship program in 1993. The program awards grants of $18,000 to Watson Fellows to pursue dreams and passions overseas. Fellowships are provided by the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, a charitable trust established in 1961 by the children of the late Thomas J. Watson, the founder of IBM.

"Each Watson Fellow is unique," said William Moses. the foundation's Director. "But our hope is that a life-changing year spent pursuing dreams and passions overseas, whatever they are, will result in Watson Fellows enriching business, science, the arts, academia and other fields when they return to America."

The Thomas J. Watson Fellowship Program is noted for its commitment to giving award recipients a year-long opportunity to immerse themselves in cultures other than their own. Fellows are not required to enroll in formal study at foreign universities and are free to pursue thier own interests.

Founded in 1837, Knox is an independent, four-year, liberal arts college, located in Galesburg, Illinois, with 1,100 students from 42 states and 33 nations. Knox's "Old Main," a National Historic Landmark, is the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.