Melissa Leier '98 of Hoyt Lakes, Minn., took an interest in German language acquired as a high school exchange student, developed it into an appreciation of German literature during four years at Bates, and springboarded her love of German poetry into a 12-month prestigious Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, where she will continue her study of German literature as well as teach English to Austrian gymnasium students. "It will be a privilege to continue to study literature," she said.

"I had great experiences in Bates classes with some wonderful German professors," she said, crediting her adviser Craig Decker, associate professor of German, who helped to shape her year of study abroad, and Gerda Neu-Sokol, lecturer in German, who shared a strong interest with Leier in German poetry. Together, the two spent hours reading aloud and analyzing the poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler, Bertolt Brecht and Raine Marie Rilker in preparation for Leier's senior-year German comprehensives.

Balancing academic excellence with athletic performance, Leier was named an NCAA Academic All-American for each of her years at Bates with the exception of a junior year abroad spent in the Black Forest city of Freiburg, Germany. "Sports have been an important part of my education at Bates," said Leier, a tri-sport athlete in outdoor track, cross country and Nordic skiing. A competitor in the 5K Classic and 15K freestyle events of the 1998 NCAA Division I Skiing Championships in Bozeman, Mont., Leier said, "The highlight of athletic competition is getting to the point of setting goals, reaching them, and deriving satisfaction from that. "I've found sports to be an excellent balance to academics at Bates. My teammates and fellow students have been in spirational, and I've had wonderful coaches, who have been influential as good mentors and friends."

At Bates, Leier found time to mentor scholar-athletes at the Lewiston Middle School, to play basketball with teenage boys in a local half-way house, and to coach a community running club for junior high school students. "I'm really excited about teaching," she said in anticipation of her Fulbright. "I want to help students enjoy using a foreign language."