Simmons College

BOSTON (November 10, 2004) - Simmons College Professor Jyoti Puri has been awarded one of 800 national 2004-2005 Fulbright scholarships.

Puri, an associate professor of sociology and women's studies, will conduct research on sexual minorities, the state and law in India. Her research will take place at the National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, India, from May 2005 to Sept. 2005.

Established in 1946, the Fulbright Scholarship program has supported 87,500 U.S. and foreign scholars. These individuals have contributed to history as they crossed physical and cultural borders, adding a vital dimension to academia and the professional world.

In addition to U.S. faculty and professionals who receive Fulbright grants to lecture and conduct research abroad, a similar number of foreign scholars receive awards to come to the United States.

Simmons is a nationally recognized small, private, and predominately women's university in the heart of Boston. It has undergraduate programs for women, and graduate programs for women and men.

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Source: Simmons

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Eastern Illinois University :: International Students and Scholars -Personnel

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Tofayel Ahmmad

International Student Ambassador - Bangladesh

Mr. Tofayel Ahmmad is an Economics Graduate Student of Eastern Illinois
University (EIU). Recently, he has been elected as a Vice President
(Education Affairs) of EIU Economics Club. Before coming at EIU, he was
working as a Research Associate at Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute
(BFTI). He is a young leader in international trade research. He also
worked in the Economics Research and Statistics Division (ERSD) of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland. He received many
international trainings related to international trade and economics. He has
completed BBA and MBA from the famous and prestigious University of Dhaka,
Bangladesh. He has visited many countries including France, Switzerland,
Germany, India and Singapore. He has many research publications among which
include Shipbuilding Industry of Bangladesh-current position and future
prospects, EU-India Free Trade Agreement: Possible Impact on Bangladesh's
Export and Trade Almanac. Trade Almanac has been published by the Ministry
of Commerce and Government of the Peoples' Republic of Bangladesh.
Shipbuilding Industry of Bangladesh-current position and future prospects
has been published in the Journal of Bangladesh Studies (JBS) which is
published in the USA.

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Source: Eiu

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The University of Tennessee at Martin - http://www.utm.edu

Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Stati

"I don't exactly remember, but I think the conversation with my parents went something like, 'Mom, Dad, I want to leave my full-time ride academic scholarship at a private women's university to attend a school you've never heard of in a state you've never visited to pursue something I'm not very good at,'" said Dr. Karoline Pershell, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Pershell recently spoke to the University of Tennessee at Martin Development Committee about her less than normal path to attending UT Martin and the life lessons she learned during her time as an undergraduate.

It was all for bull riding.

"I decided I needed to get some professional help for my bull riding addiction, and UTM had a fantastic rodeo program, so I decided to transfer down here," Pershell said.

Pershell grew up training and showing horses in summers, and while attending the University of Notre Dame's all-women's part, Saint Mary's College, she heard of a rodeo club starting in the area. Though she had no rodeo knowledge, she joined thinking with her background with horses, she would ride saddle broncs. There was a practice pen about an hour away, she explained, but upon arriving she discovered that it only provided bulls.

"... so I said, 'I knew that.' So never having planned to get on a bull in my life, I was getting on five minutes later," Pershell said.

That was the start of her love for bull riding that would lead her to UT Martin's rodeo program.

Pershell vowed to be the hardest worker on the rodeo team, which was the first lesson she took away from her time at UT Martin - there's no substitute for hard work.

"I vowed when I got here to be the hardest worker on the team, and not to show off; but so that I could be the best Karoline I could be, which meant not only being the hardest worker at the barn and at the practice pen ... but to be the hardest worker when no one else was watching, when only I would know; in the classroom, at the gym, when watching practice tapes," she said. "... Coach finally allowed me to start getting in on practice, and I also won Coach's Bumble Bee award my last year here."

Pershell's second point was that the term "practice makes perfect" is wrong; but in fact "perfect practice makes perfect."

"I practiced before I came to UTM. I asked every yahoo, has-been, wanna-be bull rider what I should do to train and then I did it with fervor. And only when I came to UTM did I stop beating my head against a wall and actually make progress," she said. "If you keep practicing the wrong thing, you get really good at doing the wrong thing."

Finally, it was a lack of fear of failure that contributed to Pershell's success. Because she was unafraid to chase a passion, she was rewarded with a lack of regrets. She ended up graduating from UT Martin in 2003 and received her master's degree from Rice University in 2006 and finally her doctorate from Rice in 2009, she then returned to UT Martin to teach.

"I have no fear of failure. I do fear regret, the feeling of looking back and wondering how it would have been different if you had just tried harder," she said. "I also think everyone should keep an anti-resume, the list of all the things that you have tried and failed at. If your anti-resume isn't as long as your resume, then you are playing it safe, working inside your comfort zone, and you have stopped asking yourself 'I wonder if I could ...'"

Pershell said she returned to UT Martin because of the support she has and still receives here, and she was recently accepted as a Fulbright Scholar, which will allow her to teach mathematics in India next year.

"I believe that the work ethic I developed while pursuing dreams that just didn't mesh with my natural athletic ability has been central to my success in other areas of my life. I hope that rodeo continues to be that source of inspiration for many future students for them to become the best that they can be as well," Pershell said.

Source: Utm

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Exploring international business opportunities for Maine companies

Concluding a semester-long, in-depth research and analysis project, students from Saint Joseph's Cross Cultural Management class present their findings on business opportunities in the developing markets of Brazil, Russia, South Africa, China, Turkey and India for local, Maine companies on April 25. Kevin Hancock, president of Hancock Lumber, will precede the presentation with opening remarks.

Led by Fulbright Scholar Beth Richardson, J.D., students spent the spring semester performing group research on select countries to understand their markets' histories, cultural customs and economies. Utilizing professional journals, periodicals, news publications and direct communication with industry professionals like Kevin Hancock, Richardson's students developed comprehensive case studies on potential international business opportunities for Maine-based businesses.

The presentation is free and open to the public. It takes place at 7 p.m. in the Viola George Auditorium, Harold Alfond Hall, at Saint Joseph's Standish campus.

April 10, 2013
Contact: David Svenson at 207-893-7723 · dsvenson@sjcme.edu

Source: Sjcme

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New book examines Oceania's impact on Victorian culture

New book examines Oceania's impact on Victorian culture

Oceania and the Victorian Imagination, edited by Richard D. Fulton, former vice chancellor for academic affairs at Windward Community College and Peter H. Hoffenberg, associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, is available from Ashgate Publishing.

In the book, Oceania, or the South Pacific loomed large in the Victorian popular imagination. Everything was possible there. This collection of essays focuses on Oceania's impact on Victorian culture, most notably travel writing, photography, international exhibitions, literature and the world of children.

The literature discussed affected mainly the middle and upper classes, while exhibitions and photography reached down into the working classes, as did missionary presentations. The experience of children was central to the Pacific's effects, as youthful encounters at exhibitions, chapel, home or school formed lifelong impressions and experience.

It would be difficult to fully understand the Victorians as they understood themselves without considering their engagement with Oceania. While the contributions of India and Africa to the 19th-century imagination have been well documented, examinations of the contributions of Oceania have remained on the periphery of Victorian studies. Oceania and the Victorian Imagination contributes significantly to the discussion of the non-peripheral place of Oceania in Victorian culture.

-A Windward Community College news release

Source: Hawaii

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Scholar explores one of world's oldest Buddhist Cultures

You might think it unlikely that a country that evolved from several warring kingdoms and endured three European occupations and a long civil war during its history would also be home to one of the oldest continuous Buddhist traditions on the planet.

But it is. And that's one of the things that attracted Buddhist studies scholar Dr. Stephen Berkwitz to Sri Lanka in the first place.

Although Berkwitz, professor of religious studies and current department head, originally hails from Minnesota, he has long harbored an interest in Asia.

"I became interested in studying Buddhism, particularly Buddhism in Sri Lanka, which has a very long history," he said.

"I chose Sri Lanka as a location for my research because it continues to house a living Buddhist culture and the language that is spoken there is more closely related to the ancient Indian languages I was studying in graduate school."

Buddhist tradition

Instead of focusing on the arguably more familiar Zen or Tibetan traditions, Berkwitz was drawn to Theravada Buddhism. "I was and remain interested in Theravada Buddhism, which does have a very long history and a more conservative orientation," he said. "That combination I find intriguing - that commitment to preserving an ideal against pressures to change. Sri Lanka is particularly dedicated toward that preservation ethos. Its close connection to India also gives it a distinctive development compared to other forms of Buddhism."

Unlike many Buddhist studies scholars, however, Berkwitz has chosen to focus on literary efforts beyond the canonical. "My research has been focused on Sri Lankan Buddhist history and literature primarily," he said. "One thing that probably characterizes my work and interests is to go outside of a strictly monastic setting and look at how the Buddhist religion was expressed and practiced in the wider society."

Recent research

An example is his recently published book, "Buddhist Poetry and Colonialism: Alagiyavanna and the Portuguese in Sri Lanka," which explores the tumultuous change one poet experienced as Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese. The verses of poetry translated in the book provide a window into the tremendous religious and cultural transformations of the early 17th century, when Europeans and Asian Buddhists sustained and intensified exchanges.

Berkwitz began the research for this book in 2005, attained a Fulbright scholarship to continue the research, learned to read Sinhala poetry and the Portuguese languages and spent seven months in Sri Lanka.

He also received a Visiting Research Fellowship to Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany in 2011-12. During that time, he made several research trips to Portugal to study the colonizer's views of Buddhism.

During his fellowship in Germany, Berkwitz further explored the Portuguese encounter with Buddhism in Asia. "There is a large German government-funded project, 'Dynamics on the History of Religion between Asia and Europe,'" he said. "I was among about a dozen international Fellows invited to do research, with my focus being the encounter between the Portuguese and Asian Buddhist in the 16th and 17th centuries."

Indeed, there are only a handful of scholars in the world who focus on the areas Berkwitz studies, but that doesn't diminish the growing importance of his work.

"It's a small number, but it's timely because there is a great deal of interest in the humanities in general to look at the history of cultural encounters," Berkwitz said. "By looking at these encounters, scholars are seeing potential for understanding the role these exchanges had for shaping the development of people and places in the modern world."

Source: Missouristate

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James Madison University - Edward J. Brantmeier

Edward J. Brantmeier

Edward J. Brantmeier is an Assistant Director of the Center for Faculty Innovation and Assistant Professor in the Learning, Technology, and Leadership Education Department at James Madison University. In 2009, Ed was a Fulbright-Nehru lecturing scholar in India at the Malaviya Centre for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in the city of Varanasi. Ed co-taught a multicultural peace education course in the Malaviya Centre's post-graduate program. He co-developed a peace education course for their masters program in peace education and also co-organized an international conference on peace education and development, supported by a grant from the United States India Education Foundation. In addition to working with faculty and students at Banaras Hindu University, he guest lectured several times at other universities in both India and Nepal. Ed travelled with his wife Noorie and two sons--Noah and Ian.

Ed and colleagues at Varanasi, India school that demonstrates peace education in action. The children run a parliament to learn democratic literacy, a newspaper to advocate about children's issues, and a bank to learn financial literacy.

back to JMU Voices of Fulbright

Source: Jmu

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Faculty urged to contact scholars, students in tsunami-hit nations

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By Daniel J. Fitzgibbons

As more reports come in from countries devastated by last week's earthquake and tsunami in Asia, the International Programs Office is urging faculty and staff to contact scholars and students in the region to determine whether they are safe or have been affected by the tragedy.

"There are lots of faculty who have colleagues in those areas or who have traveled to countries such as Thailand or Indonesia," says Pat Vokbus, foreign student advisor at IPO. "It's important for all of us to try to check in with those colleagues or students and see if they are safe."

Problems may be referred to IPO or the Dean of Students Office, which are ready to offer whatever support or assistance the staff can provide, she says. Information about students is particularly important, she says.

There are currently about 350 residents from the affected countries studying at UMass, says Vokbus, but, "Lots of our students travel over winter break, and we don't know how many have gone home."

Vokbus says 304 of the students are from India, while 32 are from Thailand. There are also four from Sri Lanka, five from Indonesia and seven from Malaysia. Nearly all are graduate students.

"We're fairly sure that we don't have any students on exchange in that area right now," Vokbus adds, but it is possible that some faculty could be in the area on an independent basis, "but there is no one that we know of."

Since news from the region is so fragmented, says Vokbus, "It would be nice if faculty could pass along any information to our office. If they hear that a student is safe or has died or has lost family members, it would be helpful to know that."

Vokbus also heard this week from Gov. Mitt Romney's office, which has been offering assistance to private and public institutions across the state. "They were trying to determine the scope of the impact on UMass and wanted us to know that they are ready to help if necessary," she says," That felt really, really good."

In the meantime, Vokbus and other IPO staff have been coordinating information and working with members of the local international community to get the word out about relief operations.

Information has been posted on the campus's gateway website ( www.umass.edu) with links to several relief organizations.

Campus employees may also donate through the University of Massachusetts Amherst Community Campaign (UMACC), by sending either cash or a check, earmarked for Tsunami Relief, to the UMACC Office, 305 Whitmore.

Haneef Sahabdeen, radiation safety services officer at Environmental Health and Safety, who is from Sri Lanka, is coordinating a clothing drive for disaster victims. A box has been placed near the University Store in the Lincoln Campus Center to collect summer clothing and blankets. Sahabdeen is preparing the donations for shipment.

The International Programs Office can be reached at 545-2843 and the Dean of Students Office's number is 545-2684.

Source: Umass

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