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Source:
Clemente Jaquez-Herrera, clemente@k-state.edu
Pronouncer: Clemente Jaquez Herrera is klem-ENT-ay hah-KEZ
air-AIR-uh
Photo available. To request, e-mail media@k-state.edu
or call 785-532-6415.
Editor's note: Jaquez-Herrera is a graduate of Lakin
High School.
News release prepared by: Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, 785-532-6415,
ebarcomb@k-state.edu
Friday,
December 8, 2006
K-STATE'S
CLEMENTE JAQUEZ-HERRERA RECEIVES GILMAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP
TO STUDY ABROAD IN ORVIETO, ITALY
MANHATTAN -- As an architecture student, Clemente Jaquez-Herrera
has become familiar with Italy's rich architectural past through
the slides and photographs he's seen in his classes at Kansas State
University.
But
Jaquez-Herrera, a senior from Garden City, is looking
forward to touching architectural history when he studies in Orvieto,
Italy, in the spring 2007 semester. Jaquez-Herrera is the recipient
of a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, an honor worth
up to $5,000 for study abroad. More than 1,100 students nationwide
applied for as many as 400 scholarships.
"It's
very exciting to go where a lot of what we use in architecture nowadays
was first being done," Jaquez-Herrera said. "What people
built back then is something I want to integrate into my own designs."
Lynn
Ewanow, associate dean of K-State's College of Architecture, Planning
and Design, has known Jaquez-Herrera since he was a freshman. She
said the college's program in Orvieto will allow him to strengthen
his foundation in architecture and Western civilization through
firsthand experience and give him the opportunity to broaden his
perspective by meeting new people and experiencing a different culture.
Jaquez-Herrera
said he looks forward to learning about the local culture as well
as the architecture. Jaquez-Herrera speaks Spanish and English,
which he learned as a young teenager, and now is learning Italian.
He wants to be prepared for opportunities to converse in Italian
with native speakers.
Jaquez-Herrera
also is excited to have more time to draw and sketch in ways that
allow him to be expressive outside of his architecture studies at
K-State. He plans to share his artwork with high school students
he mentored as part of the Upward Bound program at Garden City Community
College.
In
an essay for the Gilman Scholarship, Jaquez-Herrera wrote that most
of the Upward Bound students see the local community college as
the farthest place away from home that they will study and how he
hopes his own experiences will inspire them to dream big. He also
described how coming to K-State to study was a big step for him
as the first person in his family to go to college.
Jaquez-Herrera
is meeting the academic demands placed on K-State architecture students
while also becoming a campus leader. He has taken leadership roles
in the Hispanic American Leadership Organization and Sigma Lambda
Beta, a historically Latino fraternity where he led the effort to
create the Sigma Lambda Beta Latino Immigrant Scholarship. He has
been a multicultural ambassador for K-State, organized and spoke
at an immigration reform rally and mentored Kansas City-area high
school students through the Kauffman Scholars program. He also has
earned membership into Mortar Board and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies.
He
was a member of K-State's Developing Scholars program, which promotes
academic excellence and serves underrepresented students. As a senior,
Jaquez-Herrera continues to work with the group by coordinating
activities for the scholars. He also is active with various groups
and activities within the college, whether it's volunteering for
a design charrette and construction project in New Orleans, serving
on the dean's advisory board and a department head search committee,
or serving as president of K-State's National Organization of Minority
Architecture Students, which recently was named chapter of the year.
He is the recipient of many awards and a participant in many community
service activities.
Such
widespread involvement while also focusing on academic excellence
is remarkable, Ewanow said.
"Students
in the college are expected to devote considerable time to their
studies, so even for a gifted student it is a challenge to be engaged
on a number of different levels in the university and maintain such
a high level of academic standing," she said.
Jaquez-Herrera's
contributions to K-State's National Organization of Minority Architecture
Students include participating in an award-winning design project
for a film institute in San Francisco. Jaquez-Herrera said he aspires
to one day design public structures like museums. He said another
area he'd like to focus on is to influence the type of residential
architecture accessible to most people by creating something meaningful
beyond the need for shelter.
"One
aspect of architecture I'd like to focus on is to help the common
people," he said.
The
Gilman International Scholarship is a congressionally funded program
offered through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of
the U.S. Department of State and is administered by the Institute
of International Education. One purpose of the Gilman Program is
to encourage participation by students in a broad range of fields
of study, including those not traditionally represented in study
abroad.
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