Grand Valley ties for second in number of faculty Fulbright Scholars

Grand Valley State University tied for second place in a ranking of faculty Fulbright Scholars among Master’s institutions, compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Grand Valley has three faculty members who were awarded the prestigious awards which allow them to travel abroad to teach at a different institution. 

The three faculty members awarded Fulbright Scholarships for the 2012-2013 award period include:

— Ashok Kumar, professor of management in the Seidman College of Business, was selected as a Distinguished Fulbright-Nehru Professor to serve at Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi for the fall semester.

— John Bender, associate professor of chemistry, will teach during the winter semester at Babes-Bolanyi University in Cluj, Romania.

— Erik Nordman, assistant professor of natural resources management, will teach for a full academic year at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya.

The full ranking list from the Chronicle of Higher Education can be found here: http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/135456/.

Mark Schaub, chief international officer at the Padnos International Center, participated in the Fulbright program in 2006, and said the experience made him a better educator, and had a profound positive experience on his family.

“Taking part in the program made a big impact on my family,” Schaub said. “Providing a semester abroad experience for our two middle-school-age sons was perhaps the best parenting move we’ve ever made. Fulbright experiences develop the whole person: professionally, as researchers and teachers, but also as citizen ambassadors of the U.S.A.”

The Fulbright program is a prestigious and competitive program, and is the flagship of the U.S. government’s programs in international educational exchange. The program offers a variety of individual and institutional grants which are awarded on the basis of merit and allow individuals to study, teach, lecture, and conduct research in other countries.

Fulbright grants are made to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countries for a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing, advanced research, graduate study, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools. Since the program’s inception, more than 85,000 U.S. Fulbrighters have traveled abroad to lecture or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields. More than 144,000 foreign citizens have come to the United States under Fulbright auspices.

For more information on the faculty Fulbright Scholar program, contact Mark Schaub at (616) 331-3898 or [email protected].