May 3, 1931

The New York committee on foreign study and travel, charged with disbursing eight privately sponsored scholarships for junior year study abroad awarded the scholarship for study in Spain to Elizabeth Brereton ’33. Miss Brereton and the alternate, also a Vassar student, Violet Fletcher ’33, were two of only three women among the 13 awardees and alternates.

Speaking at Alumnae House in April 1933 about her study abroad in a “Vassar Abroad” program, part of the annual spring conference of the Alumnae Council, Miss Brereton described, according to The Miscellany News, “the life of a Vassar girl in Madrid in the ‘very safe haven’ of the Residencia of Señoritas under the auspices of the Smith group…. She was taught Arabic by a priest and metaphysics by a man well-known in political circles.”