Michael Adelman ’10 and William Towne ’09 Awarded Udall Scholarships

Michael Adelman ’10 (Clarks Summit, Pa.) and William (Ben) Towne ’09 (Litchfield, N.H.) are two of 80 students nationally to be awarded 2008 Morris K. Udall Scholarships. Lafayette is the only exclusively undergraduate liberal arts and engineering college among the 64 institutions whose students were honored.

Awards go to future leaders in environmental fields. Scholarship recipients receive $5,000 for educational expenses.

Lafayette’s strategic plan calls for a significant increase in the College’s commitment to the study of the natural environment, environmental issues, and environmental policies. The College is developing an environmental studies program and major.

Adelman, a civil engineering major, is studying engineering and German language and culture in a Lafayette faculty-led program at Jacobs University Bremen this semester. Towne, an electrical and computer engineering major, spent the spring 2007 semester at Jacobs University, as well as the 2008 winter break in South Africa as part of an interim-session course. Both students plan to attend graduate school and continue their work with environmental sustainability.

“My dream is to do something for the world that I can feel good about, and the environmental field is a great opportunity for me to make this happen,” Adelman says. “I hope to help design creative solutions to environmental problems, to benefit both people and the natural world.”

The students’ success reflects Lafayette’s distinctive status as an exclusively undergraduate liberal arts college with an outstanding engineering program. Adelman and Towne are involved with the College’s new Economic Empowerment and Global Learning Project (EEGLP), which was saluted by President Bill Clinton at the recent Global Initiative University Conference in New Orleans. An offshoot of work begun by the College’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), the project helped villagers in Lagunitas, Honduras, to create a sustainable economy by growing coffee. EEGLP will continue its work in Honduras and undertake a new initiative in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

EWB, whose members include students from numerous majors, worked to provide the Honduran villages of Lagunitas and La Fortuna with clean water distribution and irrigation systems. Adelman traveled with the group to La Fortuna in January to continue the project.

Adelman has also taken advantage of Lafayette’s focus on close student-faculty research. As a member of the Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (SEES), he worked on an multidisciplinary, collaborative project to remediate compounds, such as chlorinated solvents, from groundwater, headed by Arthur Kney, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering; Samuel Morton, assistant professor of chemical engineering; and Steven Mylon, assistant professor of chemistry. SEES is dedicated to preparing students to be leaders in environmental technologies and research.

Towne has received an undergraduate scholarship from Tau Beta Pi, the national engineering honor society. In 2007, he also won a scholarship from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Pennsylvania (ACEC/PA) for his academic achievement and involvement in the community. Towne originally received an honorable mention for the Udall Scholarship, but he has now been designated as a scholarship recipient.