Distributed May 5, 2003
For Immediate Release

News Service Contact: Mark Nickel



Emma K. Kuby

The first David J. Zucconi Fellowship for International Study awarded

Emma K. Kuby, of Cincinnati, Ohio, has received the first David J. Zucconi ’55 Fellowship for International Study. After graduating from Brown on May 26, 2003, Kuby will use the fellowship to spend a year in France and England studying feminist movements and the increased representation of women in government.


PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The inaugural David J. Zucconi ’55 Fellowship for International Study was has been awarded to Emma K. Kuby, who will graduate on May 26, 2003, with a double concentration in history and gender studies. Kuby will spend a year in France and England studying feminist movements in the realm of politics.

The fellowship honors David J. Zucconi, a 1955 graduate of Brown, who served the University for more than four decades as an admission officer, fund-raiser, alumni officer and sports fan. Zucconi died Jan. 22, 2003, after a battle with cancer. He is widely recognized by generations of Brown alumni for his remarkable achievements as an alumnus and a Brown University employee. The program acknowledges Zucconi’s exemplary service, his love for his alma mater, and his support for a strong student program at Brown.

“Even at the end of a four-decade career at Brown, Dave Zucconi was still our greatest cheerleader for the transformational power of higher education,” said Brown President Ruth J. Simmons. “He was delighted to see generations of students whose lives and careers were shaped by what they learned and experienced at Brown.”

The fellowship recognizes students who, through diligence and hard work, have excelled in their academic course of study and performed well in a leadership capacity in one or more extracurricular activities. It includes a stipend of $25,000, round-trip travel to the location of study, and fees and tuition, when needed, at a host university abroad.

Kuby, of Cincinnati, Ohio, will travel abroad to conduct oral history interviews and participant-observer research on feminist movements toward increasing women’s seats in national decision-making bodies. In France, the movement has sought to achieve a 50-50 split between male and female elected representatives; in England, the movement has supported affirmative action by individual political parties.

An honors candidate elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior, Kuby wrote her senior thesis on “Feminist Campus Politics on Violence Against Women, 1976-1994: Using History to Theorize the Political.” The thesis explores the history of Brown students’ activism against rape and domestic violence through the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s, examining how feminist politics were transformed under Reagan and his successors and how feminist undergraduates defined their relationship with institutions like Brown and the legal system.

While at Brown, Kuby founded and coordinated the University’s Coalition Against Relationship Abuse and co-coordinated the Domestic Abuse Advocacy Project at the Swearer Center for Public Service and the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center. She also served as a public policy intern at the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence and as a courtroom advocate for the Providence Restraining Order Office.

Zucconi Fellows are expected to return to Brown following their year of study to offer a seminar, colloquium or lecture, and they will be expected to seek out opportunities for mentoring successive cohorts of Brown students. The fellowship competition is overseen by the dean of the College, with participation of various offices including the Department of Athletics, Student Life, the Swearer Center for Public Service, the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, and the Office of the Chaplains. Applications are accepted at the beginning of the academic year.

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