June 13, 2008

A Burmese Activist Wins a Brown U. Fellowship; U. of Phoenix's Canadian Branch Hires First President; Yale's Provost Will Run Oxford

By RICHARD BYRNE, GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK and AISHA LABI

SAFE HAVEN: Brown University has announced that Dr. Ma Thida, a Burmese fiction writer, physician, and political activist, is the recipient of the International Writers Project Fellowship. The annual award provides a stipend and working space for writers who face arrest or harassment in their native countries, or who have been involuntarily exiled.

As a physician, Dr. Thida worked largely among the poor of her country. But she was imprisoned in Burma, now called Myanmar, in 1993