Finding Your Path For Washington and Lee University’s Jack Evans ’25 and Adja Ndiaye ’26, receiving a Gilman Scholarship redefined what was possible during their four years on campus and beyond.

Through the Gilman Scholarship, Adja Ndiaye ’26 was invited to visit the U.S. Embassy in Jordan.

From the moment students step onto Washington and Lee University’s campus, the Office of Fellowships is ready to help them pursue new opportunities.

Comprised of Matthew Loar ’07, director of fellowships and student research, and Dallas Tatman, assistant director of fellowships and visiting instructor of anthropology, the Office of Fellowships’ team of two plays an outsized role in W&L students’ time on campus; during the 2025-2026 academic year alone, Loar and Tatman held 1,155 meetings with 271 individual students about fellowship opportunities.

“I think I made so many appointments with Dr. Loar and Dr. Tatman that I practically lived in their offices,” said Jack Evans ’25, who received several fellowships during his four years on campus, including a Gilman Scholarship and a Boren Scholarship. “They walked me through every essay revision, interview preparation and everything in between. I could never have achieved what I have without their help.”

Each year, W&L students apply for (and receive) a range of scholarships, including Fulbright awards, Boren Scholarships, Critical Language Scholarships and Gilman Scholarships. Loar and Tatman work diligently — Loar since he started at W&L in 2019, with Tatman joining him in 2023 — to show W&L students the range of fellowship opportunities available to facilitate their studies, whether at home or abroad, and regardless of their background, major or career interest.

“One of the first events I attended during my first year was the Gilman information session, and it opened my eyes to just how much aid and opportunities are available to elevate a student’s education,” said Adja Ndiaye ’26, who received a Gilman Scholarship in December 2024 to study Arabic in Jordan. “After being awarded with my QuestBridge Scholarship I figured I was set, but that was only the beginning.”

Established in 2001, the Gilman Scholarship provides merit-based scholarships to more than 3,000 American undergraduate students with high financial need each year, expanding horizons for students who might not otherwise get a chance to study abroad. More than half of Gilman Scholars are first-generation students, and over 70% come from small towns or rural areas.

During her time abroad, Ndiaye visited Petra, an archaeological site in southwestern Jordan considered to be one of the new seven wonders of the world.

For Ndiaye, an earth and environmental geoscience major and Arabic minor from Greensboro, North Carolina, the Gilman Scholarship was an important steppingstone for her, both personally and professionally. During her semester abroad, Ndiaye was invited to visit the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, where she met with public diplomacy officers and learned about their work and discovered additional opportunities for fellowships and internships. When she returned to campus, Ndiaye connected with the Gilman alumni network to seek career advice and became a mentor for other W&L students interested in the Gilman Scholarship. Looking back on the opportunities the Gilman Scholarship created during her time abroad and for her future, Ndiaye is grateful she took that first step out of her comfort zone to pursue her dreams.

“Receiving this award was confirmation that I was taking the necessary ‘risks’ in working toward my dreams,” Ndiaye said. “I learned that stepping out of my comfort zone and putting myself out there is not a terrifying thing, but in fact the opposite because it can reward you with things you couldn’t have imagined.”

Redefining What’s Possible

Evans applied for his first passport after he was accepted to W&L, and his dream of studying abroad became a reality when he received a Gilman Scholarship in December 2022 to spend a semester at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. “The first time I ever flew on a plane was on my way to Poland, and I have the Gilman Scholarship to thank for that,” he said.

Evans, a global politics and East European and Russian studies double major from Ashland, Kentucky, also saw the Gilman as an opportunity for experiential learning, where he could take what he was studying in his global politics courses and apply it in a real setting.

“The region of the world I had studied was no longer a place on a map I yearned to see, but somewhere I had been, met people and seen the consequences of the very political concepts I was studying,” Evans said. “My Gilman experience made everything I was learning feel more purposeful.”

The Gilman Scholarship allowed Jack Evans ’25 to explore the places he had learned about in class, including Piłsudksi Square in Warsaw, Poland.

The Gilman Scholarship redefined what was possible for Evans as a W&L student and alumnus, and he was eager to discover new opportunities that would allow him to return to Eastern Europe and continue developing his linguistic and cultural proficiency. He also received a Boren Scholarship to study Russian in Kyrgyzstan during the summer of 2024, and a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to teach English in Uzbekistan following his graduation from W&L.

“Winning the Gilman Scholarship gave me a new confidence that I could seek out and win fellowship opportunities and that these opportunities all carried the potential to form who I am as a professional and an individual,” Evans said. “Before I won the Gilman Scholarship, I never saw myself as the kind of person who could win these awards, but the Gilman gave me proof it was possible. Every scholarship and fellowship I pursued opened the door to the next one, and they collectively shaped my time at W&L.”

Evans’ fellowships experience also helped him decide on a career in national security. As a Gilman Scholar, he had the opportunity to assist refugees at a train station on the Ukrainian border. Through this volunteer work, Evans met families whose lives had been upended by the war, and he began to view the crisis through a different lens, realizing “how easily something like this can happen to anyone” and deciding to dedicate himself to the field of national security.

“Seeing the humanitarian impact of a nation’s security completely unraveled, combined with America’s uniquely impactful position in the world, led me to want to build a career where I can one day support efforts to prevent and resolve conflicts like these,” Evans said.

The Boren Scholarship helped jumpstart Evans’ federal service career (the scholarship requires recipients to work for the federal government for one year after graduation), and Evans was also named a Grand Strategy Fellow by the Hertog Foundation’s Security Studies Program and participated in a four-week summer program in 2025. During the fellowship he took courses and engaged in simulations and case studies that reflected real-world decision-making.

Now back stateside after completing his nine-month Fulbright program, Evans is grateful for the doors that W&L’s fellowships program opened for him, beginning with that first plane ride as a Gilman Scholar. He encourages all W&L students to explore the opportunities that are open to them by making an appointment with the fellowships office and adds a reminder to not count yourself out before you even begin, recalling how nervous he had been to apply. But now, looking back, he is proud he had the courage to put himself out there and pursue his dreams.

“Education abroad builds character,” Evans said. “Some days are fun while others are genuinely hard, but I’m always grateful for these experiences. Every time I pack my suitcase and return home after a stint abroad, I find myself changed by my experience and forever a little more connected to a country that was once just a place on a map but is now home to people I built community with and lived alongside for weeks or even months.”

A view from Evans’ walk to class at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland.

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