Bonnie Callen, assistant professor of nursing at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, was surprised and delighted to learn she had received a Fulbright award to teach and do research in Ireland. She was even more surprised and delighted when she learned that her brother, a state employee in California, also had received a Fulbright Award to teaching in Kiev, Ukraine.
Bonnie Callen“What is interesting,” Callen said, “is that neither of us knew the other was applying!”
Callen is one of two UT faculty members who have been awarded Fulbrights for the coming academic year. The other recipient is Bill Dewey, associate professor in the School of Art, who will be going to Swaziland in Africa.
A Fulbright representative will be at UT Knoxville to hold an information session about future Fulbright award opportunities from 3 to 5 p.m. on April 28 in the James A. Haslam II Business Building, Room 401. All interested faculty and staff are invited to attend. To RSVP for the information program, contact Alan Rutenberg at arutenberg@utk.edu or 974-8686 by Friday, April 24.
Callen’s Fulbright appointment is to teach and conduct research at the Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery at University College in Cork, Ireland. She will work with Irish researchers to study the growing trend of obesity in the aging population as well as interventions that can help older adults. Callen’s goal is to discover the similarities and differences in these two countries that might lead to developing more effective interventions in both cultures as well as in other countries.
Callen has been at UT since 2003. She teaches transcultural nursing and community health nursing. Her research has been on nutrition and obesity in older adults. Her research has involved the Meals on Wheels program, and she is currently interviewing 100-year-old residents in Knox County about their lives and the role of nutrition in their successful aging.
In Swaziland, Dewey will research the art of traditional Swazi blacksmiths and woodcarvers. This work will include interviewing the craftsmen about their art and how it is used in their culture. He also plans to assist staff in the country’s only museum with documentation and educational materials.
At UT, Dewey teaches classes about African art history, the African Diaspora and art made by the native peoples of the Pacific Islands and Australia. Dewey has curated many exhibitions on African art, including the 2003 exhibit at UT’s McClung Museum titled “The World Moves — We Follow: Celebrating African Art.”
UT Knoxville has two Fulbright representatives — Pia Wood, associate provost and director of the Center for International Education; and Alan Rutenberg, director of proposal development, Office of Research.
C O N T A C T:
Pia Wood (865-974-2173, pwood@utk.edu)
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)
For more UT news, visit http://www.utk.edu/news/
Check out our new faculty experts guide at http://www.utk.edu/news/experts/
See UT faculty, staff and students making news at http://www.utk.edu/news/in_the_news/