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Montana State Universityâ€™s graduating senior wins Heydar Aliyev Award - PHOTO

Montana State Universityâ€™s graduating senior wins Heydar Aliyev Award - <font color=red>PHOTO</font>

07 May 2012 11:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Steven Babbitt, 22, a graduating senior at Montana State Universityâ€™s Department of Political Science, has won the 2012 Heydar Aliyev Award for Excellence in Azerbaijan-related Academic Endeavor.

â€œI am delighted and honored,â€ said Babbitt, who also received a $1,000 check in addition to his certificate. â€œAzerbaijan has become my obsession.â€
The Heydar Aliyev Award was delivered by Ramil Gurbanov, Vice Consul of the Azerbaijan Consul general to Los Angeles, California and the 12 western US states, including Montana. This is the third year a student from MSU has been recognized with the prize.

Babbitt, who traveled to Azerbaijan in 2010 as part of Professor Thomas Goltzâ€™s â€œNew Silk Roadâ€ intense, traveling summer school course on energy and environmental issues, wrote his senior thesis on a statistical analysis of western media reporting on the Karabakh conflict between the years 1988-94. Babbitt was also the MSU captain of two diplomatic simulations under Goltzâ€™s directionâ€”a course based on the 12-member Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (which has active participation by Azerbaijan) as well as the 22-member Model Arab League. The MSU team participated both in a regional competition in Salt Lake City, as well as in the national competition in Washington DC, where the MSU delegation took home numerous awards, including the chairmanship of the important Environmental Affairs committee. While in Washington, the MSU team had the chance to meet with H.E. Elin Suleymanov, the Azerbaijan ambassador to the United States.