BSOS

Melissa Boteach, graduating with double degrees in government and politics and Spanish, is this year's recipient of the University Medal, the highest honor that Maryland can bestow on a graduating student. The award exemplifies academic distinction, extraordinary character and extracurricular contributions to campus or public communities.

Melissa founded the Fair Trade Advocacy Club to make the university community aware of the importance of supporting sustainable agriculture and equitable global trade. The group counts among its successes the willingness of several campus outlets to sell fair trade coffee. Melissa believes that Americans don't realize that buying, say, one cup of coffee has powerful implications worldwide.

"It's a larger way of thinking…the idea of interdependence."

She credits many of her achievements to this principle. In her personal statement for the medalist application, she writes, "So much of what I have done has been achieved by rallying the help of others and so much of what I hope to do rests on working with them in an interdependent paradigm."

Melissa's accomplishments include winning a Harry S. Truman Scholarship (for juniors with outstanding leadership potential, who plan to pursue careers in public service after graduate school), being named a Dean's Senior Scholar by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and receiving a President's Scholarship. Melissa was also instrumental in the Democracy Collaborative's observations of Interdependence Day in 2003 and 2004, a worldwide celebration for which Maryland served as the main campus.

Melissa says that she would one day like to pursue a doctorate and teach, or work for a non-governmental organization. For now, she's doing the learning and hoping to share as much as she can with others. She realizes that interdependence, specifically thinking about all purchases in a global context, is impossible. "But I will continue to live…with a general conscientiousness to do what we can with what we have."

After graduation Melissa will head to University College Dublin ( Ireland ) on a Mitchell fellowship to study equality and international development. "It's the fastest growing economy in western Europe," she says of Ireland . "And there's a lot of opportunity for out-of-classroom experiences."

Fernando Balderrama, who is graduating with degrees in economics, international business and French, was chosen to deliver the student speech at the university's commencement ceremony on May 21 st .

When he was just a child living in Bolivia , Fernando witnessed the horror that poverty caused in the world around him. Although his family believes he was too young to remember them, the “images of desperate people rushing through the streets in search of food” stayed with him throughout his life. These strong images impacted both who he is and who he hopes to be in the future.

As a teenager, Fernando was not discouraged by all that he had seen. Rather, he used his experiences to help victims of the Santa Cruz riots, assisting in the coordination and leadership of activities in the Lourdes Clinic, as well as other orphan and retirement homes. With the support of his family, who he says, “taught me the importance of hard work, integrity, independence and personal responsibility,” Fernando became an American Field Service exchange student in the United States . Both in his high school and when he was admitted to “ Maryland 's finest university,” this ambitious young man sought to integrate the Latin American culture with his new environment through salsa and merengue dances. He later served as the Spanish mentor in Maryland 's Language House.

Fernando carries his hope for integration into his education and plans to do so when he enters the workforce. He will go to London next year to pursue a master's degree in development studies so he can be “one step closer to finding possible solutions to extreme poverty and underdevelopment” around the world, he says.

The greatest lesson he has learned at Maryland and will take with him into the world? “All of us have the capacity to encourage others to believe in themselves. Whether or not we choose to advance this capacity is a personal decision that we make every day.”