Three faculty members earn Fulbright awards

Three Grand Valley faculty members were named Fulbright Scholars for the 2013-2014 academic year.

The recipients and their assignments are listed below.

• Kurt Ellenberger, associate professor in the Meijer Honors College, will conduct research and teach a jazz theory course in Austria.

• Rich Jelier, professor of public, nonprofit and health administration, will teach and conduct research at the New Economic School in Moscow.

• Sylvia Mupepi, associate professor of nursing, will return to the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, where she helped establish a master's program at its school of nursing in 2009.

Mark Schaub, chief international officer, said the number of faculty receiving Fulbright Scholarships continues to rise. Last year, there were also three faculty recipients, which ranked Grand Valley tied for second place for number of Fulbright recipients from a master's institution, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ellenberger will be housed at Austria's Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG), where he will study jazz pedagogy in Europe and compare it to the U.S. system. The KUG has institutes for jazz, jazz research and music aesthetics.

Jelier will continue researching comparative urbanization and government strategies for sustainability. He said the political economy of some Russian cities was much like Grand Rapids when it was linked to only the furniture industry.

Mupepi will teach and conduct research on cervical cancer while in Ghana. She said it's the No. 1 cancer killer of women in Ghana. "No study has been done to determine health promotion and preventative practices to reduce this mortality," she said.

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is the country's flagship international education exchange program, designed to provide opportunities for faculty members to teach and conduct research abroad.