The University of South Florida honored its expanding contingent of Fulbright scholars and welcomed visiting international researchers in a celebration of the iconic international exchange program that’s made a global impact for generations.
This year, nine USF faculty members received Fulbright Awards, joining a tradition that has made the university a national leader in the prestigious program. Five USF students who are to conduct community-driven research projects around the world were selected for the student program. The Fulbright Program, created by Congress in 1946 to promote international goodwill in the post-World War II era, sends U.S. scholars abroad for teaching and research while bringing international scholars to American campuses.
“The Fulbright experience transcends the time you spend abroad,” said USF World Vice President Kiki Caruson. “Your perspective, your teaching, your research, and your approach to education continue to be informed by a Fulbright experience.”
USF Faculty Fulbright Advisor Darlene DeMarie (center) is flanked by three visiting graduate student Fulbright scholars from Indonesia and Yashwant Pathak (far right), himself a former two-time Fulbright recipient.
Alfred Goldberg, president of Tampa Sister Cities, USF World Vice President Kiki Caruson, Assistant Vice President Bessie Skoures, USF President Emerita Betty Castor and Associate Professor Elizabeth Strom, who was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Austria for the 2016-2017 academic year, celebrated the iconic program.
The event also welcomed international visiting scholars and researchers, some of whom created presentations on their experience to share photos and reflections; several of the attendees grew up in families where one or both parents were Fulbright scholars, happily reminiscing of time growing up abroad and how the experience inspired their future careers. Former USF president Betty Castor, who served as chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board from 2014 to 2016, and members of the Mid-Florida Fulbright Chapter also were on hand to celebrate the program
“Your perspective, your teaching, your research, and your approach to education continue to be informed by a Fulbright experience.” — USF World Vice President Kiki Caruson
Charles Adams, dean of the Judy Genshaft Honors College, said USF’s success in the Fulbright program stems in large part from the Office of National Scholars, which helps prepare students to compete for the awards. He recognized the efforts of USF’s Office of National Scholars Associate Director Lauren Chambers for guiding students through the highly competitive process that is leading them to projects in the Dominican Republic, South Africa, Argentina, Barbados and India.
Adams reflected on his own time as a Fulbright professor of American studies at the University of Bonn — in what was then West Germany — calling it “one of the three or four most consequential years of my life.”
“It expanded my horizons, introduced me to all sorts of people — many of whom I am still in touch with. It changed the trajectory of my own scholarly work,” Adams said. “It just made a huge difference in my life, and I know there are many people in this room who can tell similar stories about the transformative effect of the Fulbright program.”
Dean of the Judy Genshaft Honors College Charles Adams served as Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Bonn in what was then West Germany. He went on to an academic career in Arkansas, where he had the opportunity to meet the program’s namesake, former U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright.
Originally from Tunisia, former Fulbright Student Scholar and now Florida Polytechnic Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Kais Jribi carries on the tradition of making the Fulbright community a family affair.
As the former director of international education at the University of Arkansas before joining USF more than a decade ago, Adams shared with the audience that he’d met the program’s founder, Sen. J. William Fulbright — who had represented Arkansas in the U.S. Senate for nearly 30 years — late in the senator’s life.
“That idea of peace through education is, of course, at the very heart of the Fulbright program." — Dean Charles Adams
“In his folksy, Arkansas way, at one point he said the purpose behind the program was to get people from around the world to sit down, have a meal together, talk with each other — get to know each other, get to know each other's children — so that if the opportunity ever arose, they wouldn't shoot each other,” Adams said. “That idea of peace through education is, of course, at the very heart of the Fulbright program. And it's a mission which is more important now, I think, than maybe since Fulbright launched the legislation to create the Fulbright program.”
Darlene DeMarie, who has helped USF faculty pursue Fulbright opportunities and is credited with elevating USF’s status as a consistent Top Producer of faculty Fulbright awards, said Fulbright’s benefits ripple through families and generations. “Fulbright isn’t just about the individual going to do your own work,” she said. “It’s about partnerships, it’s about coming together and learning from one another, and it lives on long after.”
View the event photos on Flickr