The Eugene M. Lang Opportunity Scholarship Program each year selects up to six (6) members of Swarthmore College’s sophomore class as Lang Scholars. Selection criteria include distinguished academic and extra-curricular achievement, leadership qualities and demonstrated commitment to civic and social responsibility. As its central feature, the Program offers each Scholar the opportunity and related funding to conceive, design and carry out an Opportunity Project that creates a needed social resource and/or effects a significant social change or improved condition of a community in the United States or abroad. In addition, it offers each Scholar a diverse succession of undergraduate and graduate financial and other benefits. The Program was conceived and endowed by Eugene M. Lang ’38.
Rose Ridder, Swarthmore Class of 2020, was granted this Lang Opportunity Scholarship during the winter of her sophomore year in 2017, granting her the use of up to $10,000 to develop this Phapangwittaya Water Project in collaboration with Phapangwittaya School and other community stakeholders.
In September 2017, Rose received final project approval from her Lang Scholar Advisory Committee and began implementing this program starting November 1, 2017 in Phapang, Thailand. Her Lang Opportunity Scholarship Proposal and Supporting Materials may be found in Google Drive here, and her April 2018 mid-project update is available here.