Five Adjunct Faculty Fulbright Scholars
by Chris Cumo
Dr. Joe Peters
Dr. Joe Peters has taken the road less traveled to his Fulbright scholarship. A course in Eastern religions as a freshman at Purdue in 1972 led him to nature rather than the classroom. He volunteered for the U.S. Forest Service the next year and fought fires in the American West and later, while in the Peace Corps, on Isabela Island, the largest in the Galapagos Archipelago.
His fascination with cultural and biological diversity has enticed him to spend nearly 10 of the last 22 years overseas, including the Peace Corps stint in Ecuador. Other jaunts have included
Taiwan, China, Madagascar and Indonesia. With his interest in the Orient, Peters was horrified by the carnage of the Vietnam War and believed he could best serve his own altruistic inclinations as
well as other people and nature by helping heal Vietnam’s human and ecological damage. When in 1998 his wife Dai landed a job in Hanoi, Peters went with her, applying for and receiving a Fulbright for 1999-2000. Although Grand Valley State University, where Peters taught one year, lists him as an adjunct assistant professor of biology, he considers himself a natural resources manager. His
teaching of this subject has led to friendships with students in the U.S. and other countries, and now Vietnam, where he and Dai just finished research with farmers in using sweet potatoes as a cover
crop in the northern mountains.
Along with Vietnamese scholars, Peters is preparing a proposal for conservation education at one of Vietnam’s national parks. He intends later in the year to present a paper on Vietnamese rural
development at an international conference in Danang. As he sees it, the Fulbright has given him the opportunity to do what he most enjoys: teach, research, curricular development and project
management.
In this whirlwind of activity he is committed to advancing the Fulbright’s end: “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” Peters has succinct advice for adjuncts who are thinking of applying for a Fulbright: “Go for it!”
Fulbrighters are limited only by their motivation and aspirations. Peters advises adjuncts to establish relationships with a university, and to be certain their expertise matches the needs of the host nation. “Just keep an open heart and mind,” he urges. Peters has followed this counsel all his life.
Dr. Polly Kaufman
Dr. Polly Kaufman proves you do not have to be 25 years old to endure the rigors of a Fulbright. It was that long ago that she received her Ph.D. in history from Boston University. Since then she has published five books on women’s history and westward migration, and become a scholar who studies the transfer of people and culture between the United States and Europe. In addition to teaching history as an adjunct and senior scholar at the University of Southern Maine, she has designed women’s history walking paths in Boston and Portland, Maine.
Her leap across the Atlantic was a result of more than just her scholarly interest in migration patterns. She had visited cousins in London and Madrid. She wanted a Fulbright so she could spend a full year in Europe, Norway as it turned out, questioning her perspectives of European and American cultures, and so she could be adventuresome.
In Oslo she has designed a walking trail along with students to statues of women there, and with these students is coauthoring a booklet on the trail. Her work benefits more than hikers, for Kaufman is travelling around Norway to give seminars to secondary-school teachers and to visit students. Through these interactions she hopes to diminish stereotypes that Norwegians have about Americans, as well as her own stereotypes.
In the process she wants Norwegian teachers and students to understand American partisan politics, governance, and efforts at reform. Kaufman hopes other adjuncts will follow her example, especially those who have a gray hair or two. Robust health, curiosity, and adaptability are all one needs to flourish abroad.
She believes older Fulbright scholars bring a mature perspective to their host nations, while remaining receptive to different cultures. The Fulbright program welcomes applications from scholars of all ages, Kaufman emphasizes. Age is an opportunity rather than a barrier.
Dr. Steven Stralser
Dr. Steven Stralser teaches marketing as an adjunct at the University of Arizona, where years earlier he had been an undergraduate interested in medicine until he ran headlong into organic chemistry. Fortunately the business school was loaded with talented professors, and Stralser found a niche in marketing, where he has been a consultant, salesperson and entrepreneur. As busy as he has been, he has always made time for teaching marketing, a subject that nourishes his appetite for creative and complex thought.
His work has won him teaching awards at both the University of Michigan, where he earned his Ph.D., and at Arizona. Stralser views teaching as a portable profession, and a jaunt through Europe convinced him that he would relish an opportunity to teach overseas. The Peace Corps might have been an option, but Stralser wanted a Fulbright, “the gold standard in terms of teaching exchange programs,.” he said. A bit of research uncovered that the University of Miskolc and Budapest University needed a marketing instructor, so Stralser applied for and received a Fulbright to Hungary.
The Fulbright allowed him to share with students his vision of American free enterprise, and to learn how Hungarian professors teach marketing. A Fulbright is not for everyone, Stralser knows, but for adjuncts with an inclination to teach abroad he recommends they choose a country that needs their skills, rather than gambling on a plum assignment in Italy. He warns that Fulbright winners may need to endure Spartan conditions.
At Miskolc and Budapest, Stralser had to scramble for paper, paper clips, and a working copier machine. He had to make do with a 40 megahertz computer with Windows 3.1 and no Internet access. Classrooms in Miskolc were damp, cold and probably had not seen a coat of paint since the 1950s. Although students were prohibited from smoking in class, between classes they filled the halls with an acrid haze.
Whatever the shortcomings, aspiring Fulbrights can expect energy and diversity in Hungarian classes. Stralser taught gregarious students from France, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Spain and the U.S. Hungarians were a minority in his classes. Fulbrights will also have a chance to sample foreign cuisine. Stralser relished pastries and confectioneries of all kinds, and found Hungarian wine to rival the better-known vintages of Italy and France. Any Fulbright willing to learn from a different culture can flourish abroad, he emphasized.
Dr. Sibyl James
Dr. Sibyl James, adjunct in humanities at Highline Community College and Fulbright scholar in Cote d’ Ivoire, has always been drawn to literature, both reading and writing it, and cannot imagine a better job than one that pays her for establishing a dialogue with students about books. She teaches writing and literature, introducing students to a range of work by women and men of different backgrounds. James tries to get students to question what they read and is especially proud that, at the end of a recent term, one of her students confessed to reading newspapers much more critically.
James enjoys being a “resident foreigner.” This is her second Fulbright, her first having been in Tunisia. In addition she has taught in Mexico and China. James concedes that she could not have afforded such excursions on her pay; the two Fulbrights and other stipends have permitted her to experience deep immersion in other cultures, a process that enhances her perspective of the world and promotes cultural exchange.
These convictions have led her to the Ivory Coast, whose people are eager to learn about American culture. For her part, James wants to teach students accustomed to learning by rote that a true education requires them to exchange and evaluate ideas, to ask questions, to seek diverse answers and to become reflective thinkers.
She, too, has much to learn from African writers and intends to enrich Highline’s curriculum with their works when she returns to America. She has published five books, and plans to shape her Fulbright experiences into a book on Ivoirian culture. She also hopes to raise awareness about the Fulbright program, especially among adjuncts who, like she does, teach at community colleges.
Fulbright staff are eager, she notes, to recruit applicants outside the ivory tower. Once you have a Fulbright in hand, be flexible. Every fellowship poses its own challenges and frustrations. Buy a shortwave radio, James urges; the BBC will be your lifeline to news. The onus will be on you to form friendships and investigate places. No matter how gregarious you may be, you must be comfortable spending time alone, for you will sometimes be “a stranger in a strange land.”
Match your skills with the needs of a country, and choose somewhere you want to live. But take the path less traveled: your odds will be better of winning a Fulbright to Madagascar than to Italy. Is Indonesia beckoning you, perhaps?
Dr. Armond T. Joyce
Dr. Armond T. Joyce is a Fulbright scholar with an eclectic background. Although he teaches geography as an adjunct associate professor at the University of New Orleans, he holds no degree in the subject. Rather he has a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Forestry from the State University of New York at Syracuse University. Geography is simply the framework within which he assembles knowledge from the biological, physical and social sciences to understand environmental issues with the goal of helping people improve their use of natural resources. His focus is on the tropical biomes, with their rich diversity of flora and fauna. He began teaching geography in 1988 while chief of the science division at the NASA Stennis Space Center. Since then he has taught conservation of natural resources, remote sensing (satellite observations of earth), and environmental geography.
One senses that Joyce combines this work with altruism. His service in the Peace Corps in Ecuador, and graduate studies and research in Costa Rica, heightened his interest in resource management in Latin America. His application to be a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Costa Rica was a natural outgrowth of his two years in Ecuador and his work in Costa Rica. This altruism has a streak of ambition, however; Joyce applied for a Fulbright partly because of its prestige.
His Fulbright combines teaching and research. He teaches students in Costa Rican universities to interpret data from satellite photographs of earth. Many of these students might never gain this skill but for Joyce’s expertise, a realization that strengthens his conviction of the importance of teaching. His research is no less valuable. In collaboration with other scholars, Joyce hopes to gather data about how people are using land in the tropics, and to devise mathematical models to predict future changes in land use. In its broadest context, the results of this work may improve our understanding of global climatic changes.
The opportunities the Fulbright affords Joyce are open to other adjuncts, but superb credentials alone will not suffice. He advises them to do their homework. Start by identifying a country of interest and establishing relationships with its universities before applying for a Fulbright. Part of this process necessitates that applicants select a country whose needs match their skills. Joyce believes it essential that adjuncts know the research agendas of faculty in a target university and the content of courses they would likely teach. This legwork culminates in the candidate’s letter of invitation in which she details how her teaching and research are perfect for a university in Italy, Pakistan or wherever.
Don’t be fooled. The process of applying for a Fulbright is just as arduous as applying for a university position here at home, but adjuncts are accustomed to hard work.
