SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Wofford College President Nayef H. Samhat has named Lindsey Grace Perret, a junior Spanish major from Charleston, S.C., as the 2014-2015 Presidential International Scholar. Perret is the 31st scholar in the college’s innovative program that allows one student to travel internationally to research an independent project. The scholar is selected each year by Wofford’s president as “the singular student best fitted to benefit humankind.”

“Lindsey Perret is the kind of student we seek for the Presidential International Scholar – an individual who has a passion for service learning combined with an intellectual curiosity about the world around her and how she can make it a better place,” Samhat says. “Her work as a Bonner Scholar, as a tutor for English as a second language students, and as a participant in the Global Leadership Program in Panama last summer, as well as her many other activities at Wofford illustrate her energy and engagement.”

Perret, who is studying abroad for the spring semester in Argentina, will be studying women as agents of change in Latin America. “Just like in the United States, patriarchal legacies in Latin America foster the repetition of limiting gender roles, but change can happen, and it often does,” she says. “I want to listen to women who use a shifting local and global context in addition to imaginative leadership to unlock women’s potential, and subsequently, a more complete human potential.

“I am so grateful to Wofford, President Samhat and the anonymous donor for the opportunity to pursue my project,” Perret continues. “My studies at Wofford have inspired in me a passion for studying community change and women separately – to be able to study them simultaneously on such a large scale is exciting as well as challenging.”

Perret, the daughter of Pauline Hendricks Perret of Charleston and a Dean’s List student, is the chair of a corps of volunteers working with students at Arcadia Elementary School in Spartanburg School District 6 as tutors of English as a Second Language students and working to improve the environment for the young students through planning community events and applying for grants. She has worked with the program since coming to Wofford.

At Wofford, in addition to being a student staff member in the Admission Office, Perret is a member of Alpha Phi Omega, which conducts service projects on campus, in the local community and globally; Twin Towers service organization, specifically working with the local ARCH ministries to bring first graders to campus to encourage an interest in continuing education; and Spectrum, striving to create a safe space for all Wofford students regardless of gender or sexual orientation. She also is a participant in the Hispanic Alliance of Spartanburg, which builds collaboration among service providers and the Hispanic community. She is a member of Sigma Delta Pi, the Spanish honor society.

She is a graduate of Academic Magnet High School.

Funded by an anonymous donor, the Presidential International Scholarship program provides the selected student the opportunity to travel and study independently for five months during the scholar’s senior year, returning for the spring semester.