Tarun Chhabra awarded Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans
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Tarun Chhabra was awarded one of thirty-one 2009 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.
Warren F. Ilchman, Director of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, announced that the programme´s Board of Trustees had approved thirty-one extraordinarily accomplished young people - all of them immigrants to the United States or the children of immigrants - to become Soros Fellows for 2009, in the programme´s twelfth year of competition. The 2009 Soros Fellows were chosen from nearly 750 applicants from 266 undergraduate and 137 graduate institutions.
Over the years Soros Fellows have attended 120 undergraduate institutions and have pursued their graduate studies at 50 different universities. The Soros programme has helped, among other degree recipients, 79 MDs, 62 JDs, 33 PhDs, 25 MBAs, 20 MFAs and 45 other Masters complete their academic programmes, for a total of 264 completed degrees. The Fellows and their families represent seventy-one countries, further diversified by representation of oppressed minorities in those countries.
The programme is funded by income from a charitable trust of $65 million created by philanthropists Paul and Daisy Soros, of New York City and New Canaan, Connecticut. Since its inception, over $30 million dollars have been spent in support of graduate education of New Americans. `We founded the Fellowship programme to encourage young people with demonstrated leadership qualities, much like the Rhodes scholarships.` Mr Soros comments. `Our criteria are designed to identify people who will make a success of their lives and who will contribute something to this country, in whatever area of endeavor they choose.` In addition to the relevance of graduate study to a candidate´s long-term goals, there are three criteria for candidates:
creativity,originality, andinitiative, demonstrated in any area of her/his life
commitment to and capacity for accomplishment, demonstrated through activity that has required drive and sustained effort
commitment to the values expressed in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The third criterion includes activity in support of human rights and the rule of law, in opposition to unwarranted encroachment on personal liberty, and in advancing the responsibilities of citizenship in a free society.
Please see www.pdsoros.org for more information about the programme.
Tarun Chhabra completed his MPhil at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar; he is currently completing his DPhil in International Relations, whilst studying law at Harvard.
