- Pronouns:
- She/Her
Cathlene is from Knoxville, Tennessee, and will major in Germanic Studies and Slavic Studies. “My most proud achievement is the honor of becoming a Wells Scholar. IU is where I want to be, and the ability to attend IU and assist my family financially is a dream come true.” She loves Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (“a book with so much commentary on the human experience”) and carries with her a marked-up copy of that novel she once bought at a used bookstore in Maine. Cathlene’s favorite author is Sylvia Plath (“She takes me out of my comfort zone and each poem leaves me asking more questions than they answer”). In addition, she draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Goethe (“One who is ignorant of foreign language is ignorant of his own”) and Lynyrd Skynyrd (be “free as a bird”). Her grandparents, who are the reason she speaks German, met at IU in the 1960s. No wonder Cathlene fell in love with IU, too. Of course, there are those beautiful limestone buildings and the renowned German Department and the fact that she likes red. While she'll miss Knoxville, with its Sunsphere, sweet tea, and beautiful mountain backdrop, Cathlene looks forward to forging her own path at IU and studying abroad in Germany and Kazakhstan. Her most important values? “Be down to earth and respectful to others. I think being your honest and genuine self around others and allowing them to do the same helps you to form real, lasting relationships.” Cathlene will hold the Ruth Norman Halls Scholarship.