University of Tulsa biochemistry and Spanish senior Camden Schinnerer of Sand Springs, Oklahoma, has received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant award (Fulbright ETA) to serve one year in Ecuador. The Fulbright program places award winners in classrooms around the world to support local English teachers and represent the United States as cultural ambassadors.
Schinnerer is a TU Global Scholar who has studied abroad in Germany, Hungary and Spain. He is a TU orientation leader and is a member of Mortar Board, Order of Omega, Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Delta and the TU student chapter of the American Chemical Society. He has participated in the Tulsa Undergraduate Research Challenge (TURC) program and represented TU at the annual Research Day at the Capitol. He has received the Mervin Bovaird Foundation Scholarship and the TU Dean’s Scholarship and was honored as a Jess Chouteau Top 10 Senior during Homecoming 2017. Schinnerer has volunteered at the Dennis R. Neil Equality Center and for Reading Partners. He also has worked as a phlebotomist at St. John Medical Center in Tulsa.
As a Fulbright ETA in Ecuador, Schinnerer will return to the home country of his adopted siblings and contribute to English learning education while also improving his Spanish fluency.
“A large portion of my desire to add Spanish as a major came from the potential to better relate to my siblings and to speak their native language with them,” he said. “My breadth of tutoring provides me with a unique diversity of skills and techniques.
Schinnerer hopes to volunteer at a local health clinic in Ecuador for an experience that will impact his future career in medicine. “Working at a hospital has shown me the importance of volunteers,” he said. “Location, permitting, I will help at an orphanage in any capacity needed, which will allow me to impact a community particularly important to me.”
Upon his return from Ecuador, Schinnerer plans to attend medical school and also earn a master’s degree in public health from the University of Oklahoma.