Rebecca Paulson ’03
Student, Ph.D. in Education Policy and Leadership
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Mass.
EDUCATION
B.A., Wofford College (2003)
M.Ed., International Education, University of Massachusetts (2008)
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Paulson joined the Peace Corps immediately after graduating from Wofford. She spent two years in Dakoro, Niger, working on la scolarisation des filles or “girls education.” In Niger, only 8 percent of females are literate. Paulson’s mission was to visit villages throughout the region, convincing them of the importance of sending their girls and young women to school.
In 2006 after completing her Peace Corps assignment, Paulson was offered a full, 20-hour assistantship from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Now in the Ph.D. program, she spent the summer of 2008 in Tunis, Tunisa, studying Arabic with a State Department of Education scholarship. Over the past three years she has worked as an education consultant and trainer in Niger, Mali, Benin, Sengal, The Gambia and Brazil. Most of her work focuses on providing training for teachers in severely under-resourced areas.