KNOXVILLE — Four University of Tennessee students and five faculty members have been awarded Fulbright grants this year to study, teach or conduct research overseas.
The U.S. Fulbright Scholar Program provides grants for about 800 scholars each year to more than 140 countries, including visiting scholar grants to the United States and fellowships for college students.
“Traveling overseas to collaborate with scientists, teachers and students from other cultures expands the academic horizons of our faculty and greatly enhances the educational experience of our students,” Provost Loren Crabtree said. “We are extremely proud of our Fulbright Scholars, and we are pleased that the Fulbright remains such a popular program at UT.”
Dr. Jim Gehlhar, director of UT’s Center for International Education, said programs like the Fulbright remain popular despite current international tensions over terrorism and a possible U.S. war with Iraq.
“The foundation of the Fulbright program at its establishment immediately following World War II was the premise that people who know each other better and have a better grasp of other countries- cultures, mores and languages are less likely to carry arms against one another,” Gehlhar said.
“I think to a large extent that has happened. People who have gone on Fulbrights or similar international scholar experiences do see the world and themselves in a different light from how those who have never had such an experience do.”
Students from UT’s Knoxville campus now studying abroad on Fulbright Fellowships are:
–Lauren Adcock, Germantown, Tenn., who is teaching English as a Foreign Language in France this academic year.
–Joy Bracewell, Dublin, Ga., who is devoting this year to teaching English and American culture in Germany.
–Lindsey Levkoff, Gallatin, Tenn., who is studying European Political and Economic integration at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
–Katherine Weisensee, Knoxville, who is doing a comparative study of Slovakian and North America Hutterite populations at Comenius University in Bratislava,Slovakia.
UT’s latest faculty Fulbright Scholar grant recipients are:
–Dr. Leslie Gay, UT Music professor, who lectured and conducted research at the University of Aarhus in Aarhus, Denmark, during the fall semester.
–Dr. Michael Handelsman, professor of modern foreign languages and literatures, who is conducting research at Simon Bolivar Andean University in
Quito, Ecuador.
–Dr. Beauvais Lyons, UT art professor, who lectured at the Fine Arts Academy of Poznan in Poznan, Poland, during the fall semester.
–Dr. Gregory Stein, UT law professor, who is doing his second semester of lecturing at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.
Fulbright Visiting Scholars at Knoxville this year are Carl-Gustaf Thulin, a biological sciences researcher from Sweden, and Moges Woldemeskel Woldemariam, a medical scientist from Ethiopia.
Dr. Hugh Savoy, UT associate professor of biosystems engineering and environmental science, is one of the first recipients of the new Fulbright Senior Specialists program, which offers two- to six-week travel grants to faculty who cannot stay gone for an entire year or semester.
Savoy went to the University of Zagreb in Croatia to lecture, study water pollution and coordinate soil nitrogen research between U.S. and Croatian scientists.
Other UT faculty on the Fulbright Senior Specialist waiting list to be matched to project requests overseas are: Dr. Donald Bouldin, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Dr. Sharon Judge, associate professor of teacher education; and Dr. Barbara Stark, professor of law.
The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State-s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
More information on the program is available at http://www.cies.org/.