R.I. Foundation fund supports language study

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Natalie Tacy of West Warwick, a senior at the University of Rhode Island who has studied French since middle school, has won a fellowship that allows her to study in France. She won a grant from the Beatrice S. Demers Fund established through the Rhode Island Foundation to spend the fall semester there.
Fifteen of the 18 Demers fellows this year are from URI and shared a total of $166,054 to study in France, Germany, Chile, China, Spain and Rwanda. Three other fellows attend other colleges.
Demers taught foreign languages for more than 30 years to students at URI. Fluent in French, German and Spanish, she studied Chinese and Russian in her 70s, and after her death, left $4 million to the foundation to establish the fund.
The other 14 URI student winners (and countries where they will study) are: Brian Ramos (France and Rwanda); Lucas Hanson (Germany); Norman R. Blanchard (Chile); Ian G. Calise (Germany); Arielle M. De Souza (France); Michael Ferrari (China); Alexander Giannakos (Germany); Amanda E. Junkins (France); Paul J. Kintz (Germany); Jillian Scott (France); Nelson A. Shepard (Spain); Spencer D. Soucy (France); Joseph P. Sullivan (Germany); and Elizabeth A. Wynn (Germany).
According to the foundation, the other three fellows are Zoe Downes, who attends Brown University, and will use the fellowship at the Middlebury College Portuguese School in Middlebury, Vt.; Katherine Long, who also attends Brown (Tajikistan); and Maria Verdi, who attends the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (China). •

No posts to display