Senior English major Brian Baillie will be spending next year teaching and coaching in England courtesy of the William Penn Fellowship.
Senior English major Brian Baillie will be spending next year teaching and coaching in England courtesy of the William Penn Fellowship. The Fellowship sends recipients to Chigwell School, a co-ed boarding school 10 miles outside of London.
Baillie will preside over classes in English literature and American history and help coach the soccer, basketball, and track teams (he's a current member of Haverford's track & field and cross country teams). He'll live on school grounds with other faculty members and lend a hand with tutoring, after-school activities, and class trips.
A native of the Philadelphia area, Baillie first heard about the William Penn Fellowship from a friend who had applied in 2003.“It sounded interesting,” he says,“and I had never studied abroad while I was here, so I decided to go for it.” He also enjoys working with children; he's taken several education classes while at Haverford and helps with a local running camp during the summer.
After his year at Chigwell, Baillie may continue teaching or pursue graduate school, focusing on Irish studies—he's writing his senior thesis on James Joyce's Ulysses. Right now, he plans to make the most of his time overseas, and is already anticipating visits with family members in Scotland and Northern Ireland. His grandmother, meanwhile, is using her own girlhood recollections of England to prepare him for his trip.“She's sure everything will be the same as it was in the '20s,” he laughs.
The William Penn Fellowship seeks to encourage a better understanding between Great Britain and the United States by sharing intellectual and cultural experiences as part of Chigwell's everyday life. The school's most famous alumnus is William Penn himself (Class of 1656); the school library was once the room where he was taught, and his spirit and ideals continue to influence Chigwell's education of its students.
