Angelo State Senior, Holly Miles, Receives Thomas R. Pickering Fellowship

Holly Miles, a senior in the Angelo State University Honors Program, has received a 2014 Thomas R. Pickering Undergraduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship.

This fellowship will provide up to $40,000 per year for graduate studies, as well as summer internship opportunities and a guaranteed appointment as a Foreign Service Officer upon completion of her master’s degree.

A native of Tehachapi, Calif., Miles graduated from Ballinger High School and is pursuing her ASU bachelor’s degree with double majors in sociology and Spanish. Through the Honors Program, she has presented sociology and Spanish papers at Great Plains Honors Council conferences in Canyon, Texas, and Fort Smith, Ark., and presented original poetry at a National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) conference in New Orleans. She also participated in the NCHC Partners in the Park program at the Grand Canyon in 2013 and studied abroad in Spain in 2012.

On campus, Miles spent a year as a senator in the Student Government Association, is a member of the Honors Student Association and is an Honors Program mentor. She is also a student worker for ASU’s Community Development Initiatives as project manager for the Drug Free Coalition project. She has been inducted into the Alpha Chi national honor society and Alpha Mu Gamma national foreign language honor society, and has been named to Who’s Who Among Students at American Universities and Colleges.

Scheduled to graduate from ASU in May, Miles has been accepted into the international environmental policy program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a graduate school of Middlebury College in Monterey, Calif.

The Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship is funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. It provides academic and professional preparation for outstanding candidates to enter the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service, representing America’s interests abroad.

Pickering Fellows receive mentoring, professional development and financial support as they prepare to enter the Foreign Service. Upon successful completion of the Foreign Service examination, Pickering Fellows make a commitment to a minimum of five years of service in an appointment as Foreign Service Officer.

More information on the Pickering Fellowship program is available online at http://woodrow.org/fellowships/pickering/. More information on the ASU Honors Program is available at www.angelo.edu/dept/honors/.