Allia Keysor, a 2023 Le Moyne graduate, has been offered a Fulbright U.S. Student Program English Teaching Assistant Grant to Switzerland. Keysor majored in English with an advanced writing minor at Le Moyne, additionally tutoring and interning at the Writing Center. Currently, Keysor is employed as a human resources generalist at BMK Logisitics and a substitute teacher for Liverpool Central School District. The grant that Keysor has been offered, beginning in September 2024, will place her in Solothurn, Switzerland for 10 months.
“My heart truly stopped when I was notified of my acceptance,” said Keysor, a native of Liverpool, N.Y. “Blankly staring at the letter on my laptop, I was frozen, just beyond ecstatic. After a few minutes, I finally snapped out of my shock enough to rush over and share the news with my family, all of whom were incredibly happy for me. Dr. Cromley and I spent months laboring over my application, reviewing every single word to best articulate my family ties to Switzerland and passion for cultural exploration and education, so to receive that notification was very rewarding; it felt like a culmination of all my experiences at Le Moyne and beyond, a testament to the fact that I have grown as a person and educator since I began college in 2020. As I move forward with the Fulbright Program, I hope to instill in my students the same sort of confidence and excitement about language that I developed in my undergraduate studies.”
“Mature, self-possessed and an attentive and generous listener, Allia is committed to promoting cross-cultural exchange,” said Deborah Cromley, Ph.D., who teaches in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and is Le Moyne’s Fulbright Program advisor. “As a child, Allia visited her mother’s family in India multiple times, and she is dedicated to sharing her own bicultural perspective on the diversity of cultures in the U.S. while she experiences the intersections of cultures and languages in Switzerland. Her demonstrated wide range of interests (including music, cooking, and film) are sure to enliven Allia’s classroom teaching and interactions with her host community in Solothurn.
Keysor’s tutoring experiences at the Writing Center greatly shaped her interest in education, allowing her to strengthen her teaching philosophy by working with a variety of students at Le Moyne and collaborating with her tutor cohort. Her semester study abroad in Tokyo, Japan also contributed to her desire to explore different educational systems, encouraging her to question her values and assumptions as an international student. Keysor hopes that these opportunities will enable her to approach the Fulbright Program with curiosity, eagerness and empathy.
Upon returning to the U.S. from Switzerland, Keysor plans to pursue a doctorate degree in English and work with multilingual learners at the university level.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments, host institutions, corporations, and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 160 countries worldwide.