Semester at Sea Participant Receives Prestigious Udall Scholarship

Courtesy of Western Kentucky University News: In 2009, William "Joey" Coe and Patrick Stewart became the first ever Udall Scholars at Western Kentucky University (WKU). Coe, a junior at WKU, has once again been honored as the only Udall Scholar from Kentucky in the 2010 competition.

Coe, is one of 80 students from 63 colleges and universities selected by an independent review committee of the Udall Foundation.

"There were a lot of very capable applicants from WKU and it's an honor to be selected," Coe said. "This is a tribute to the community of activists we have on campus. This is not just me; it's a movement of positive change."

Amy Eckhardt, director of WKU's Office of Scholar Development and faculty representative for the Udall Scholarship, said it was not common for the Udall Foundation to honor a sophomore because they usually do not have the demonstrated record of service and leadership with the focus on the environment that it takes.

"Joey's commitment to the environment has continued to deepen and evolve in the past year," she said, and this demonstrated growth helped his second application be successful.

For Coe, having the Udall Foundation think he's doing something worthy is both awesome and humbling. "I have a responsibility to continue the work I've been doing and to build on it," he said.

Coe used the first $5,000 scholarship, along with a Travel Abroad Grant from the WKU Honors College and a World Topper Grant from Study Abroad and Global Learning, to participate in Semester at Sea, the only study abroad program of its kind in the world, in the fall of 2009. Using a ship as its traveling campus, students, faculty, and lecturers learn and reside together while fully circumnavigating the globe each fall and spring semester and exploring a world region each summer.

Working with Dr. Bernie Strenecky, scholar-in-residence at WKU and Director of Service Learning for Semester at Sea, Coe helped form an environmental club aboard the ship and helped institutionalize service learning. They were able to implement environmental service learning projects "that had an awesome impact the communities we visited," Coe said.

While participating in Semester at Sea, Congress began considering the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Although they had limited access to the Internet and email, Coe and the environmental club he helped establish orchestrated a lobbying campaign that resulted in 180 letters to senators supporting environmental legislation.

This global experience has enabled Coe to connect his environmental passions with his work on social justice and international development. Coe, an Honors College student and an environmental studies major, is an active member of the student environmental organization the GreenToppers and WKU's chapter of Americans for an Informed Democracy.

Also at WKU, Coe is working with Dr. Strenecky and the new Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility at WKU on the Class Legacy Project to involve incoming freshmen in improving the quality of life in underserved areas of Bowling Green by tapping into their knowledge and ideas.

"That fits into my style of environmentalism," he said. "It's about people. You have to be focused on the human being and help use natural resources to improve quality of life. It's not about saving a tree; it's about saving a person."

About the Udall Foundation

The Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation is an independent federal agency that was established by Congress in 1992 to provide federally funded scholarships for college students intending to pursue careers related to the environment, as well as to Native American students pursuing tribal policy or health care careers. The Udall Foundation also offers a doctoral fellowship in environmental policy or conflict resolution and operates a Native American Congressional Internship program each summer in Washington, D.C., placing top college, graduate, and law students in Senate and House offices, the Executive Office of the President, and Cabinet agencies, where they learn firsthand how federal policies on tribal issues are developed. In 1998, the Foundation grew to include the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, created by Congress as the federal government's only program focused entirely on resolving federal environmental disputes.