Taubman College Bjornar Haveland awarded University of Michigan’s 2015 Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship
Architecture bachelor of science senior Bjornar Haveland was awarded the University of Michigan’s 2015 Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship to support a year-long project, “Permanently Displaced: Exploring the Humanitarian Potential of Architecture in Protracted Refugee Situations in Lebanon and Kenya.”
The Wallenberg Fellowship Committee was “impressed by the significance and highly-informed focus of Haveland’s proposal and the connections to his personal goals in the years ahead to bring the complex and multi-sided issues of long-term refugee settlements into architectural discourse.”
Each spring, the Wallenberg Fellowship is awarded to a graduating senior of exceptional promise and accomplishment who is committed to service and the public good and provides $25,000 to carry out an independent, self-designed project of learning or exploration anywhere in the world during the year after graduation. Through an active and immersive experience, and by connecting in meaningful ways with the lives of other people and communities, the Wallenberg Fellow will prepare to make a difference in the world.
The fellowship is inspired by and honors Raoul Wallenberg (B.S. Arch. ’35), one of the most illustrious graduates of the University of Michigan. At U-M, Wallenberg was recognized for the excellence of his academic work in architectural studies, his eagerness for knowledge of the world and for understanding others, and for his intrepid independence and resourcefulness. He left Ann Arbor resolved to be actively engaged in life. Ten years later, as a Swedish diplomat during World War II, Wallenberg coordinated the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest. He disappeared after he was arrested by Soviet authorities. One of the great heroes of the 20th century, Raoul Wallenberg shows that even under the most daunting circumstances, one person can make a difference.
Haveland will be recognized as the recipient of the 2015 Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship at U-M’s Honors Convocation, which will take place at 2:00pm on March 15, 2015 in Hill Auditorium. The convocation’s 2015 theme is entitled, “Social Justice and the Role of Higher Education: Can One Person Make a Difference?”
About Raoul Wallenberg: http://www.provost.umich.edu/scholars/scholarships/wallenberg.html
About the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship: http://wallenberg.umich.edu/
The award was generously created by the Mary Sue Coleman Endowed Fund for the Raoul Wallenberg Fellowship to support future generations of Michigan students who are inspired by Wallenberg’s legacy and to honor President Coleman’s leadership during her tenure at U-M.
