Eight Nebraska Wesleyan University students were honored during the 2009-2010 academic year with national prestigious scholarships.

Four students won Fulbright Scholarships, the flagship international education program sponsored by the U.S. government. This year’s Fulbright Scholarship winners are:

Alex Bednar: A history and biology major from Grand Island, Neb., who will teach high school English in the Czech Republic. He will also research the development of Czech culture since the country’s Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Nicole Spry: An English and philosophy major from Lincoln, Neb. who will teach English at a university in Vietnam. While there, she will also study cultural traditions.

Meera Bhardwaj: An English major from Becker, Minn., who will teach English and study women’s organizations in Cameroon, a central African nation.

Kyle Karthauser: A 2008 graduate of NWU will teach English in Germany.

NWU students have won a total of 39 Fulbright Scholarships with 29 of those earned in the last decade. The Chronicle of Higher Education — a leading higher education publication — has consistently named Nebraska Wesleyan University to its list of top Fulbright producing schools in the country.

Matthew Carlson, a student in Nebraska Wesleyan’s Lincoln Advantage Program has won a Critical Language Scholarship. The award will send the Lincoln native to Tunisia where he will enroll in an intensive language program to study Arabic. Following this experience, he will begin a Ph.D program at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

Abby Tranel of Aurora was named a Boren Scholarship winner. Tranel, a political science major, will go to South Africa where she will study the Zulu language for one year. She was one of approximately 300 students in the country to win a Boren Scholarship.

Two students won NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships. Logan Watley was one of 29 men in the nation in all divisions selected to receive a $7,500 postgraduate scholarship from the NCAA for the fall 2009 sports season. Watley — a cross country runner — graduated in May with a degree in accounting. 

Brian Copley was one of 58 men and women in the nation awarded a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship for spring sports. He was nominated for his academic work as well as his athletic accomplishments in outdoor track and field. Copley graduated in May with degrees in history and political science.

Their awards bring NWU's NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship total to 40.