Rotary Global Grant Scholar, Ally Shepherd
Ally is a British teacher and current PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Education Policy Studies. She is a Global Grant scholar who was supported by the Chester Deva Rotary Club (UK) in order to begin this course focusing on non-formal language education for refugees in Europe. She finished her first year with a 4.0 GPA and was granted four more years of funding through assistantships by her academic department to continue her studies.Sadly, due to COVID-19, her research at a refugee camp in Greece has been postponed until it is safe to travel internationally and conduct face-to-face research. In the meantime, Ally is taking classes in qualitative research methods, community-engaged scholarship, and Arabic remotely from the UK.
Whilst at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ally also worked with a teacher at a local high school supporting immigrant students with their English language learning, and hopes to continue this work in 2021. She also enjoyed spending time with her hosts, Rotarian Ted Ballweg from the Madison Downtown chapter and his wife Joan Ballweg, who showed amazing hospitality and were knowledgeable about Madison’s farm-to-table movement, themselves being chilli farmers who frequented the city’s many farmers’ markets.
