West Greenwich native first Marshall Scholar from URI

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND senior Morgan Breene has been named a Marshall Scholar, the first URI student to be so honored. She will study maritime archaeology and European history during her two-year fellowship in the United Kingdom. / URI PHOTO BY NORA LEWIS
UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND senior Morgan Breene has been named a Marshall Scholar, the first URI student to be so honored. She will study maritime archaeology and European history during her two-year fellowship in the United Kingdom. / URI PHOTO BY NORA LEWIS

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – Morgan Breene, Class of 2014, has been named a Marshall Scholar, the first student from the University of Rhode Island to earn that distinction.

One of 31 American awardees, Breene is also the only Marshall Scholar from Rhode Island; one of four recipients in the New England region; and the only winner from a public institution in New England, the university said.

Founded by a 1953 Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, and named in honor of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Marshall Scholarship commemorates the ideals of the Marshall Plan and represents an expression of gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts.

The award provides two years of funding for scholars to study in the United Kingdom. Breene will use her award to pursue a master’s degree in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton and another master’s in European history at University College London.

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Breene grew up caring for show cows and chickens in West Greenwich, and won several selective awards as an undergraduate, including a grant from the URI Undergraduate Research Initiative to conduct archival research in London about 19th-century sea battles in the Mediterranean Sea.

Institutions nominate students for the honor. “From her early years growing up on a farm to her internationally recognized excellence, Morgan embodies everything the University of Rhode Island has stood for since its founding as the state’s land grant university,” said URI President David M. Dooley. “Her scholarship, combining historical and archaeological discovery, has placed her in truly exclusive company with this award and, in turn, she has become a part of the University’s own history.”

Breene said she was excited to be nominated and “over the moon” to find herself in the finalist stage of the competition.

“It caught me off guard when they called to tell me I won it,” she said. “I was jumping all over the living room.”

Cheryl Foster, URI’s associate director of honors and professor of philosophy, was a Marshall Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, completing her doctorate there in 1992. She was one of many faculty who helped Breene during her application process.

“Morgan will flourish in the British system of higher education,” said Foster, “a system that prizes creativity, independence and innovation. Her area of research in maritime history has important implications for how we understand the value of submerged cultural history.”

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