Simeon Michelson of Nashville, Tennessee, won the Outstanding Senior Award from the Westmont College History Department during a special convocation April 22.
His professors said: “Simeon Michelson of Nashville, Tennessee, will finish Westmont this semester with a major in history. Hailing from Tennessee, Simeon brought Southern charm to Westmont, with a winsomeness and warmth to match his intelligence. He worked very hard, setting a bar which his peers have often only been able to admire. He has done so in the face of a series of health challenges, which make his accomplishments even more remarkable. This summer, he will travel to North Africa to continue work on his Arabic as a recipient of the Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship.”
Michelson, an Augustinian Scholar, graduated with honors from Westmont during Commencement on May 4.
Michelson won a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Azerbaijan from September 2024 to June 2025. He also received the Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Morocco this summer.
After teaching and studying in Azerbaijan, he plans to pursue graduate studies in Middle Eastern history. “There is a gap in historical research on Eurasian countries,” he says. “Even though the Turkic language family is among the world’s 10 largest language groups, American media and researchers tend to focus more on Arab-speaking nations. As a result, Azerbaijani culture and history are underrepresented in American scholarship.”
Many Americans have heard of Azerbaijan because Baku has hosted Eurovision, Formula 1 or the UEFA football championships, but Michelson says they don’t understand Azerbaijan’s significance as an economic and cultural hub at the intersection of Europe and Asia. “As our multipolar world develops, Americans need to appreciate and understand Azerbaijan’s pivotal global role in Eurasia, and I hope that the Fulbright will be the next step on my ongoing journey of furthering American-Azerbaijani understanding,” he says.
Michelson, Westmont’s 5,000-meter walk record holder, also speaks German which helped him make friends with members of the German National Track and Field team when they trained at Westmont before the 2022 World Championships “I served as their driver and guide around Santa Barbara,” he says. “As I learned about the athletes’ experiences representing their country, they inspired me to become a global ambassador too.”
