In the past year, one ASU student has taught English in China and met with human rights organizations in Turkey; and this summer he will embark on a tri-continental research project — all before he graduates.

Global studies and political science junior Cole Wirpel is the 2010 winner of an around-the-world study trip from the Circumnavigators Club Foundation.

Each year the club awards students grants to conduct research projects they have submitted. The foundation requires that the project be carried out in five to seven different countries on at least three continents.

Wirpel said he felt lucky to be selected as one of only four U.S. students to receive the award and was excited to continue his exploration of different places and cultures.

“I’m just naturally really interested in the rest of the world and traveling and meeting different people,” he said.

As part of the project, one of Wirpel’s research goals is to investigate how implementing community development can prevent corruption within nonprofit organizations.

“Some people think community development will help because the people handling the money would be members from that local community and there would be an added social pressure to prevent corruption,” he said. “They would be stealing from their own community and their own neighbors.”

Wirpel’s other main research goal is to explore the sustainability of bureaucratic systems and empowering local non-governmental organizations to sustain themselves.

According to the Circumnavigators Club Web site, eight students from ASU have been selected for the award since 1993.

Janet Burke, associate dean of Barrett, the Honors College, said a local branch of the national club has chosen to sponsor Barrett every other year by selecting members of the college for the award.

Wirpel has already been to Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Singapore, China, Hungary and Romania.

He is currently spending the year at Bogazici University in Turkey.

The grant from the Circumnavigators Club Foundation will allow Wirpel to conduct research in Brazil, Central African Republic, Macedonia, Israel and China, where he spent last summer teaching English to Chinese students.

“Teaching English was the easiest way to get to China, and I really want to go to China,” he said. “My job was a job, but every day I enjoyed my experiences and traveling.”

China was one of his more memorable trips, he said.

“In China in particular, I was just really impressed with how driven, hardworking [and] optimistic everyone was,” he said. “They really seemed prepared to seize the day. I left with a lot of respect for that country, both the economy and the people.”

Burke said she had high expectations for Wirpel and believed he would seize this “life changing” opportunity.

From this research, Wirpel said he hopes to gain knowledge and experience he can use later in life. He is considering a career in the United States Agency for International Development and later to manage a nonprofit organization.

“What’s rewarding for me is working in a nonprofit and seeing the dynamics of that kind of bureaucracy and how it falls short,” he said. “In nonprofit the things that I change can have a positive effect on the community.”

Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu