Student leader wins Fulbright to teach in South Korea
April 2, 2007
NORTON--Sarata Toriola '07, an English major and campus leader from the Bronx, New York, has won a Fulbright Scholarship for 2007. She will travel to South Korea to teach English and conduct research on Korean women writers.
Toriola is looking forward to building upon her teaching skills, immersing herself in Korean culture, and acting as an informal ambassador of her own culture. ''I hope to show the children I teach that there exists a multiplicity when it comes to American identity,'' she said. ''As a woman of Dutch Caribbean and Nigerian descent, I have a very different perspective than what is considered to be 'the norm.''' Toriola feels that her work with South Korean middle and high school students will provide ''a mutual educational opportunity, not a one-sided one.''
She added, ''I've always had a drive to experience everything and every culture, and to be as open as possible.''
In addition to her English major, Toriola is completing minors in Africana Studies and Women's Studies, the latter interest sparked by her semester of study in Ghana, West Africa, during her junior year. In Ghana, Toriola studied women's self-images and accepted standards of beauty, and how those values have been changed by globalization and western ideals. The following summer, she taught English at the Robert College summer camp in Istanbul, Turkey.
''Teaching there proved to be a great challenge, [but] it ignited a passion within me,'' she wrote in her Fulbright application. Toriola is currently completing a teaching assistantship at the Pinecroft Elementary School in Norton, and she plans to pursue a master's degree in secondary education after finishing her Fulbright year.
Her Fulbright research project will focus on how women writers and their works are taught in the classroom, and how students view and value women's literature in Korea.
Toriola applied to Wheaton on the recommendation of her high school English teacher, who told her: ''English is your calling. You were meant to write and think about literature in a particular way. Wheaton College has a strong English department, and you can flourish there.''
A dean's list student since her freshman year, Toriola is a Wheaton Community Scholar and chair of the College Hearing Board, which presides over cases involving student violations of Wheaton's honor code and policies. She served as a leadership development intern with the Office of Student Life, helping to organize conferences and workshops targeted to Wheaton's student leaders. Toriola coordinates events for the Marshall Multicultural Center and has served as a peer advisor for the Center for Global Education. She is a member of the Black Students Association, the Distinguished Women of Color Collective, and Renaissance House, Wheaton's residence hall for women of color. Other honors include the Benjamin S. and Estelle D. Moss Scholarship and the Joseph Tauber Scholarship.
A co-founder of Voices United to Jam, Wheaton's gospel and R&B singing group, Toriola has used gospel music--as well as skits, role playing, improvisational techniques and Caribbean dance moves--in her teaching. She plans to incorporate many of these creative strategies into her work in South Korea.
''If students can see that you are passionate about something, they will gravitate to it,'' she said.