The adventure of international travel and the opportunity to teach - and be taught by - students and educators of another culture are the benefits of receiving a Fulbright scholar grant.
"The best thing it's done for me is put me in touch with some very interesting people doing work in Dublin, and they're interested in my work," said Todd Winkler, associate professor of music, an artist and composer who specializes in computer music. "I've developed friendships and professional relations that are continuing,"
Brown faculty members frequently are chosen for these annual awards from the United States government. The program is named for Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas who introduced the legislation to establish the program in 1946 as a post-war attempt to bring mutual understanding to the peoples of the world.
Each year, about 700 American scholars and professionals travel to 100 countries for teaching and research, and about 700 scholars from foreign countries come to the United States. The Fulbright program also includes grants to school teachers, students, and a variety of individual and institutional grants, bringing the total to 4,200 new grants awarded annually.
Winkler received a Fulbright scholar grant for one semester at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
At Trinity, Winkler presented lectures to multimedia and computer music classes and taught a graduate seminar, "Real Time Interactions," from September to December 1998.
"I loved it there. The people are really friendly; the students there are great. I enjoyed working with the students. Unlike in our country, education is free there. They get the very best students. It doesn't matter if they can't afford it."
Winkler's friendships have led him back to Trinity four times after his grant ended. He judged a contest for a graduate program in multimedia, and has participated in seminars in multimedia and computer music. He also worked on dance production with a motion sensing program which created music and projected digital video images in response to a dancer's movements. The performance at Dublin theater got great views, and the Dublin colleague is planning a visit to Providence.
Fulbright scholars are selected on the basis of academic or professional qualifications and potential, plus the ability and willingness to share ideas and experiences with people of diverse cultures. Some of the grants cover living expenses for the recipients' families.
David Kertzer is enjoying teaching political anthropology this semester at the University of Bologna, Italy.
"It's the first time that political anthropology has been taught at the University of Bologna, which is saying something, since the University of Bologna is the oldest university in Europe, about 910 years old," Kertzer said via e-mail.
"One advantage of the Fulbright for me is being able to take a whole year off, as I had a sabbatical leave first semester, which I spent at the American Academy of Rome and in Paris. I am thus able to finish the book I am working on, tentatively titled: `An Uncomfortable Past: The Popes, the Jews, and the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism.'
"I am also doing a fair amount of public lecturing (in Bologna, Pistoia, Ferrara, Venice, Rome). Finally, I am working with an Italian colleague on a three-volume history of the family in Europe."
Robert Shaw, associate dean in the office of the Dean of the College, took his interest in learning disabilities to Chile, and found a surprising amount of work being done in that field.
Shaw's travels in Chile, from July to November 1999, took him to the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, a cosmopolitan city. He also traveled extensively along the narrow strip of the country from its northern desert to its southern lake country, travel that was also enjoyed by his family. His wife, Sarah Shaw, is a Brown librarian who pursued her interest in music while in Chile.
Shaw stopped at several universities for research on learning disabilities in higher education and to give guest lectures. He found that Chile had strong support for learning difficulties from K-12, but had yet to make progress in higher education. He's written articles for academic journals, including a policy paper about Chile being poised to provide services for learning difficulties.
"The independent schools are much more concerned about changing the way they teach - they meet every week about teaching methods," Shaw said.
The experience taught Shaw "how isolated we get in our own country - we don't catalog their research." Without his trip to Chile, Shaw said he never would have been able to see a "terrific book summarizing Chile's research - it is cutting edge."
The Fulbright program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington. Information is available at www.cies.org.
Other faculty members who are current or recent Fulbright scholars are: