Last modified: Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Fulbright Program honors IUB faculty and students
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University Bloomington will have a major presence in the international exchange of ideas this academic year. Four professors and 13 students from the campus were awarded Fulbright grants for 2004-05, the university announced today (Oct. 26).
Ten of the students were named traditional U.S. Fulbright Scholars and will do graduate study or research overseas. The 10 scholars tied IUB for 11th place in total number of awards among all U.S. research universities and fifth place among Midwestern colleges and universities.
Two faculty members, Professor of Political Science Jack Bielasiak and Professor Emeritus of English Kenneth Johnston, also received Fulbright Scholar grants. They will lecture and conduct research abroad in 2004-05. Bielasiak has been named the Distinguished Chair in East European Studies at the University of Warsaw. Johnston has joined the University of St. Andrews, the oldest university in Scotland and third-oldest in the United Kingdom.
Additionally, three students and two professors -- John Hanson, professor of history and director of the African Studies Program, and Christopher Beckwith, professor of Central Eurasian Studies -- earned Fulbright-Hays grants for doctoral dissertation or faculty research abroad. Hanson and Beckwith will be doing work in Ghana and Japan, respectively.
The university will also host 11 Fulbright scholars from foreign countries in 2004-05. The visiting grantees represent the countries of Croatia, France, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mali, Spain, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
"IU has been fortunate in the many prestigious Fulbright grants awarded to our students and faculty over the years," said Patrick O'Meara, dean for international programs at IU. "We are in an elite group of major U.S. universities in terms of the number of recipients. They have done important and innovative research or teaching in countries all over the world and have been great ambassadors for the values of Senator William Fulbright. Their presence abroad has never been more important given current world conditions and the need for building mutual trust and cultural understanding through education."
The following IUB students were named Fulbright Scholars (note: students' names are followed by their field of study and the country in which they will be studying):
- Ryan Adams, anthropology, Brazil
- Jeremy Albright, comparative politics, Spain
- Christopher Baker, area studies, Kazakhstan
- Kathryn Boswell, anthropology, Burkina Faso
- Angela Bredehoeft, teaching English as a foreign language, Germany
- Cassandra Chambliss, Middle Eastern studies, Egypt
- Abigail Crisman, area studies, India
- Kathleen Lavengood, ethnomusicology, Canada
- Lisa Overholser, ethnomusicology, Hungary
- Deanna Wooley, modern history, Czech Republic
These students received Fulbright-Hays grants for doctoral dissertation research abroad:
- Ginger Elliott, political science, Tanzania
- Nathan Plageman, African history, Ghana
- Joanne Quimby, comparative literature, Japan
Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program, named for the late Sen. J. William Fulbright, has provided thousands of American scholars and professionals with the opportunity to observe each others' political, economic and cultural institutions, exchange ideas and embark on joint ventures of importance to the world's inhabitants.
The Fulbright awards are sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and by the U.S. Department of Education. They are administered by the Institute for International Exchange and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. To learn more about the Fulbright program, visit https://www.iie.org or https://www.cies.org.
The IUB Office of International Programs disseminates information on Fulbright and other external grant opportunities for students. For further information on the Fulbright grant-winners, contact Rose Vondrasek, IU student Fulbright program adviser, at 812-855-7557 or rvondras@indiana.edu.
