Northfield’s Lara Palmquist Awarded $30,000 Rotary Scholarship

Northfield High School and St. Olaf College graduate Lara Palmquist has received a $30,000 Rotary Global Grant Scholarship, which she will use to complete a master’s degree in peace studies and conflict resolution at Uppsula University in Uppsula, Sweden starting in the fall of 2014.

Palmquist is sponsored by the Northfield Rotary Club and the scholarship is awarded by Rotary District 5960, which encompasses southeast Minnesota, the east Metro, and western Wisconsin. One Global Grant Scholarship is awarded annually by Rotary District 5960. 

Here is a feature story about Palmquist that appears on the Rotary District 5960 webpage:

While originally from New Mexico, Lara Palmquist now considers Northfield, Minnesota her official hometown. Lara was first introduced to Rotary International as a student at Northfield High School, where she attended classes in the company of a number of Rotary Youth Exchange students from around the world. The insight and experiences these students shared directly contributed to her early interest in international relations and cross-cultural dialogue, and ultimately inspired her to attend a college that upheld the importance of service and study abroad.

Lara was able to fulfill this aim as a student at St. Olaf College, where she majored in American Studies and Biology. As a sophomore she spent a month in Israel and Jordan, where she studied the region’s conflicts from a political, religious, and historical perspective. This multi-tiered approach revealed the complexity of violent conflict, and first ignited her desire to pursue a career in peace-building. In her junior year, Lara spent a semester conducting research in South India geared toward supporting the efforts of a local NGO to rehabilitate honey bee hives and train community members in the practice of beekeeping. The experience likewise proved highly influential, inspiring her to investigate the confluence of peace, human rights, and the environment.

As a senior at St. Olaf, Lara’s academic interests centered on effective strategies for organizing and defending human rights. Springing from independent research she conducted on activism in the United States, Lara studied the myriad ways in which peaceful action and creative strategies have historically brought about successful, positive social change. She is currently interning with the Center for Victims of Torture in St. Paul for the summer before departing for a year-long position with the Lutheran World Federation in Jerusalem.

Lara’s 2014-2015 Global Grant will build upon this year in the Middle East by allowing her to study the origins, dynamics, and resolution of violent conflict through peaceable means at the University of Uppsala. There she will complete a one-year master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies while contributing to the university’s ongoing research of peace-building strategies around the world. In addition, she will employ her university education to assist unaccompanied, youth refugees as they seek asylum and integration into the community of Uppsala. Upon completion of her degree, Lara plans to volunteer for the Peace Corps and ultimately aims to work for an organization such as the U.S. Institute of Peace of the World Resources Institute.

She is deeply grateful to the Northfield Rotary Club for their ongoing support, guidance, and encouragement, and to District 5960 for an opportunity of such incredible scope. She looks forward to the many lessons, connections, and friendships to come, and to eternally upholding the spirit of service above self!

This story about Palmquist is posted on the St. Olaf College website:

St. Olaf College student Lara Palmquist ’13 has received a Rotary Global Grant Scholarship that will enable her to pursue a graduate degree at Uppsala University in Sweden.

The $30,000 award from Rotary International supports graduate-level studies related to the organization’s focus on humanitarian issues. Palmquist will enroll in a master’s program for peace studies and conflict resolution at Uppsala University in the fall of 2014.

“I specifically chose this program because Uppsala has an internationally acclaimed peace studies program, which will allow me to connect with scholars from around the world similarly interested in conflict mediation and human rights advocacy,” Palmquist says.

As part of the program, she will study the origins of armed conflicts as well as solutions for monitoring, evaluating, and mediating these conflicts. To culminate her studies, Palmquist will conduct research in collaboration with Uppsala’sDepartment of Peace and Conflict Research.

The Rotary scholarship also requires that recipients conduct a community project while abroad. For her project, Palmquist will collaborate with a professor of sociology at Uppsala University to facilitate the integration of young, unaccompanied minors — particularly those arriving from Syria — who are seeking asylum in Sweden.

“I especially was drawn to the scholarship because I deeply admire and embrace the larger aims of Rotary International,” Palmquist says. “Upholding the motto ‘service above self,’ Rotarians are accomplishing incredible work in the realms of health care, community development, peace-building, and education around the world.”

Before she enrolls at Uppsala University, Palmquist will spend a year interning at the Lutheran World Federation in Israel. She will work closely with the organization’s regional director, the Rev. Mark Brown ’78, and hold a range of responsibilities, from writing grant proposals and articles on the organization’s activities in the West Bank to helping manage a guest house. Palmquist, who traveled to Israel and Jordan in January 2011 through a St. Olaf Interim program, is excited to return to the region.

She hopes to continue her work abroad, ideally through the Peace Corps, once she’s completed her program in Sweden.

“Above all, I am honored to represent both Rotary International and St. Olaf in the years ahead,” Palmquist says. “As true change is not possible without community, I recognize that this global network of which I will now be a part is an invaluable resource.”