Welcome to Willamette

Rositsa Atanasova ’07 has never been afraid to explore, either geographically or intellectually. The Bulgaria native traveled to America, first in high school, then again for college, seeking educational opportunities she couldn’t find at home. She has studied eight languages, including Arabic, Greek and Hebrew, and while she was a Willamette student, she lived in France for a year to immerse herself in the country’s Muslim immigrant community.

This fall, with the help of a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship, she heads to the East Coast to study for a master of theological studies at Harvard Divinity School. She sees the program as the perfect way to continue exploring the topics she embraced in her classical studies major at Willamette — language, philosophy and religion.

“People tend to underestimate the importance of religion in our lives,” she says. “A lot of our politics and conflicts relate to religion. People among the religious communities need to talk more one on one to realize they are not as different as they think.”

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation scholarship program, one of the largest and most competitive in the nation, provides $50,000 for up to five years of graduate study in any field. Atanasova was chosen based on her service and leadership, interest in a broad range of subjects, strong character and excellent communication skills. She is the first person from Willamette to receive the award.

At Harvard, Atanasova plans to continue investigating Islam, a religion she researched while at Willamette. During her junior year, she obtained a grant to interview young Muslim women in France about a French law banning the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in primary and secondary public schools — mainly affecting Muslim girls donning headscarves. The grant from the Lilly Project, which engages people across campus in research, service and discussion to help students discover their vocation in life, helped Atanasova make a documentary film, “Behind the Veil: A Quest for Identity.”