Recent graduate Olivia Knowles (left) and Assistant Professor of French Ashley Scheu; photo courtesy Olivia Knowles
Olivia Knowles ’24 was accepted recently into the prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program and will live and work in Norway from September until next June.
The program places recent college graduates and young professionals as English teaching assistants in universities abroad, with the aim of improving foreign students’ English language abilities and knowledge of the United States while serving as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. The grants are administered by the U.S. Department of State.
Olivia will be placed at the University of Life Science in Ås, a suburb of Oslo. And not only is she proud and excited to be selected, the students she’s teaching now in Florida are among her biggest fans.
Olivia is currently serving with AmeriCorps, a federal agency for national service and stipended volunteerism. Five days a week, she makes the 45-minute drive from her home in Cocoa to Orlando, where she teaches English and language arts to seventh-graders at Walker Middle School. About 94% of the student population are from marginalized communities, and about 73% are economically disadvantaged.
“When my students found out I got confirmation, they all stood up and started clapping,” Olivia says. “They knew how much it meant to me. Most of my students are Hispanic or Haitian immigrants, and although the school mascot is a Viking, none of them knew much about Norway.
Olivia Knowles ’24
Olivia Knowles celebrates her graduation in May 2024 with Professor of Literature Daniel Spoth.
“I told my dad [that teaching middle school] is some of the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it’s also the most soul-fulfilling work I’ve ever done.”
Olivia has prepared herself well. While at Eckerd, she was a teaching assistant for an American literature course, a Johnston-Ford Scholar, a member of the national leadership honor society Omicron Delta Kappa, a peer mentor and a writing consultant. “These roles honed my mentoring and pedagogical skills,” she says. “Due to my value for a balance between pedagogical practice and scholarly pursuits, I have presented and published various academic articles that range from ecofeminist critiques and atmospheric studies in Southern literature to linguistic onomastics and analysis of language in higher education spaces.”
Her work extends beyond the classroom. While a mentor with The Kings Trust—a United Kingdom–based charity that provides assistance to 16-to-30-year-olds who face issues such as homelessness, disability and mental health problems—she successfully led a small-business club of students through the Enterprise Challenge and to the finals in New York.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, when Olivia first saw images of Eckerd College, its beaches and campus life, she wondered if the school was real. “It looked fake,” she says now with a chuckle. “I was worried I had applied to some sort of scam institution.”
And then she paid a visit. “I wanted a close-knit community, and I found one,” she says. One of her first classes was American Literature: Madness and Murder, a look at villains throughout American literature, taught by Professor of Literature Daniel Spoth, Ph.D. “He walked us through it, and that’s when I realized I really wanted to teach. My goal is to get my Ph.D. in literature and be a literature professor.
“I struggled a lot in high school,” adds Olivia, who earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in literature and philosophy at Eckerd. “But then I got a tutor and ended up graduating with high honors [and the Award for Excellence in Literature]. I wanted to know how ‘a’ becomes ‘b.’ It was the teacher.”
A stipend provided by the program will cover her cost of living in Norway. “I’m not going to be living large,” she says, “but it’s enough to make ends meet.” Olivia has been accepted to Columbia University’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, which she has deferred for a year, and she plans to earn her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University.
“Eckerd taught me to believe in myself and the value of hard work,” she adds. “The College is life-changing. And it’s filled with people I want to be like.”
Olivia is the 34th student in Eckerd’s history to be accepted into the Fulbright program, says Kat Robinson, Ph.D., assistant dean of faculty. “And she’s truly a stunning example of Eckerd College’s liberal arts focus. Olivia was always focused on doing the best she could on her application materials. We met on Zoom, and she shared drafts and plans with me. She simply worked to make sure that she had the best argument possible. She researched, drafted, revised and constantly kept focused on making the clearest set of documents for her application.
“Fulbright is truly a special program. It, like Eckerd, changes lives. With all of the tumult from the government-funding concerns, we were truly worried about this year. Yet Olivia’s dedication and preparation did not go unnoticed.
“It has been stressful for Liv,” Robinson adds, “but it is so meaningful that she persevered. For I believe, especially at this time, that citizens, graduates and humanists like Olivia must go into international spaces to show the true meaning of what it is to be an American—as a knowledgeable, capable and compassionate representative of all of us.”
