11/10/98
ATHENS, Ohio -- The Council on International Educational Exchange has established the Jennifer Ritzmann Scholarship in Tropical Biology, named in memory of the Ohio University junior who died Sept. 19 while participating in a tropical biology program in Costa Rica. Ritzmann, a 20-year-old environmental and plant biology major from Cleveland Heights, Ohio, drowned after falling into a waterfall.
Ritzmann was scheduled to spend the fall as an international exchange student in the Tropical Biology and Conservation Center at the Monteverde Institute in Costa Rica. She took with her dreams of doing forestry work in Costa Rica and a commitment to preserving the rain forest.
In her application essay for the program, Ritzmann wrote, "The Earth and every tiny microbe that dwells here is my inspiration...My one goal is to do anything I can to protect the purity of life...Knowledge gained through experience is of greater value than hours of reading. When I am able to meet the people and smell the plants that I am learning about, the lesson becomes my reality... Hopefully this program will give me the opportunity to explore what textbooks have only begun to explain."
Education Abroad Director Connie Perdreau, who personally advised Ritzmann on her studies abroad, remembers Ritzmann as a motivated and outstanding student in the sciences.
"She was a very brilliant student in plant biology and was very concerned about the conservation of the rain forest," Perdreau said. "She made a positive impression on everyone who met her."
The New-York based Council on International Educational Exchange is establishing the scholarship in Ritzmann's memory to be awarded each year to a participant in the Monteverde program. For more than 30 years, the Council on International Educational Exchange has organized and supported study abroad programs for more than 180 higher education institutions across the nation.