For the first time, three Oregon State University students have received Oregon Consular Corps scholarships in the same year, a recognition of their achievements and goals in international policy and foreign relations.
Joseph Bartholomeusz, Simone Baumgartner and Charlotte O’Brien received $3,000 each and were celebrated at a reception on Feb. 17 in Portland, where the Oregon Consular Corps is based.
The nonprofit organization is made up of former consular officials who have represented foreign nations and jurisdictions at offices throughout the Pacific Northwest, as well as people from Oregon who have international ties in business, trade and culture. The group promotes diplomatic relations with members representing nearly 40 different countries and presents 12 scholarships each year to six Oregon universities.
“OSU consistently produces a really high caliber of student,” said Julianna Betjemann, associate director of Global Affairs at OSU. “This year I’m especially proud of the disciplines represented by our winners and by the diversity of experiences they’ve been able to have during their time at OSU.”
The three students briefly addressed the crowd at last week’s reception, and will present again in May at the Celebrate Trade Gala in Portland. The gala is where most of the Oregon Consular Corps’ annual scholarship funding is raised and features several awards for Oregon and Southwest Washington-based businesses expanding their markets internationally.
“Three students from OSU receiving the OCC scholarship is a testament to Oregon leaders’ faith in their commitment to making international partnerships a living, breathing aspect of their future goals,” said Becca Otto, coordinator in the National and Global Scholarships Advising office. She also wrote one of Baumgartner’s recommendation letters. “Charlotte, Joseph, and Simone have such a diversity of interests, and I’m very proud that OSU could support them no matter the angle that they come to global education from.”
Bartholomeusz is majoring in political science with a focus on international relations, law and politics, along with minors in Spanish and public policy. He’ll graduate at the end of winter term and go on to work for electronic health record company Epic, which is expanding into global markets.
He and Baumgartner are also Gilman Scholars, which pays for students eligible for Pell grants to take an international educational trip. Bartholomeusz went to Mexico last summer and interviewed people about how they felt about their country’s governance. He’s interested in possibly working for the U.S. Department of State someday.
“I’ve always been interested in news and international relations, and I love the idea of helping people in that way, in the sense that international relations is a powerful tool to do a lot of good or a lot of bad,” he said. “Sometimes it seems like the only people who get into the field are people who do a lot of bad, and I want to be one of the people that does a lot of good.”
For her Gilman trip, Baumgartner went to Costa Rica last summer for a course on sustainability and the global environment. She’s an Honors College student majoring in chemical engineering with minors in chemistry and social justice, while working three jobs, and also plans to apply for a Fulbright scholarship this fall.
In Costa Rica, the class talked with community members about local efforts to balance environmental needs with the demands of tourism.
“When you’re from the U.S., it’s easy to have a single-minded perspective and think, ‘Oh, this could be an answer.’ But then you go visit people who are actually living there on the ground, and they might have a completely different idea from what you thought could be a solution,” Baumgartner said. “I’m really interested in promoting environmental justice through my engineering career, and I thought it was super interesting to learn and see what other countries are doing.”
O’Brien is double-majoring in international studies and political science with a minor in history. Her interests lean toward diplomacy, either working at embassies abroad or for nonprofit organizations that work in conflict zones.
Her international interest was piqued as a high school student when she participated in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program in Germany, where she got to meet with the president of the German Congress. She hasn’t studied internationally during her time at OSU but hopes to go abroad in the fall — if she’s not elected ASOSU president in the meantime.
“I’ve learned a lot from the OSU political science and international studies departments, and it’s just furthered my interest to go abroad and have an international career,” O’Brien said.
From the global scholarships perspective, Otto said it’s important for OSU to break down barriers so all students can access international experiences as a foundational part of their education.
“OCC’s support of all three of these stellar students shows that these students have built that foundation for themselves, and it’s the strongest mark of confidence in their next steps,” she said.
By Molly Rosbach
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