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From a historical perspective, the Fulbright Scholar Program opened doors for many university faculty members to teach and conduct research overseas since the 1960s.
According to Professor Michael Zdanovich (former Fulbright Program Officer) and Dr. Erich Dietrich (Fulbright Award recipient) interviews in 2021, the Fulbright programs they were a part of "encouraged cultural understanding and developed institutional collaboration." In addition, by being overseas, they were able to be "in the seat of the students" and "make adjustments to the culture as it was presented to them." This ultimately impacted their understanding of internationalization, pedagogy, and assessment to academic success.
However, Lundgren and colleagues (2017) highlight that intercultural experiences do not guarantee growth in intercultural competence. Reflections should start during the pre-departure program, and intentional and meaningful collaboration within the group is critical. In other words, cultural understanding does not happen automatically.
Reflecting on the history and intentions of the Fulbright Scholar Program, what factors are to be considered if you have the opportunity to go abroad?
It's that you're going to have to make adjustments to the culture as it's presented to you there. The ways of doing things are going to be different from what you might expect in the U.S. - very definitely.
Michael Zdanovich
Michael Zdanovich
Program Officer of Fulbright Scholar Program, 2008-2011
INTO Mason Adjunct Faculty
Michael has taught as an adjunct academic English instructor at INTO Mason since the fall semester of 2018. He will be joining the Mason Korea faculty to teach AE Core 4 and OCS Level 4 in the spring of 2021.
His career in higher education spans more than 30 years across the United States, much of it having taken place overseas. After teaching high school geography and social studies in Samoa as a volunteer with the Peace Corps, Michael taught undergraduate political science classes at Temple University Japan in Tokyo for a year, and Asian studies, history and political science classes for the University of Maryland University College Asian Division based in Okinawa, Japan for seven years. During that time, he also taught English as a Second Language (ESL) on a part-time basis in a variety of settings. In addition, Michael also taught as an adjunct at several local institutions including American University, Fairfax County Public Schools, George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College.
Erich Dietrich, Ph.D.
Erich Dietrich, Ph.D.
Fulbright International Education Award Recipient, 2016
Clinical Professor of Higher Education and International Education at New York University
Erich researches, publishes, and teaches on internationalization of higher education, equity in access to higher education, and affirmative action policies in a comparative, international context.
He serves on the Board of AIEA, the premier association for leaders in international education, and is former Chair of NAFSA's International Education Leadership Knowledge Community (IEL-KC). He also sits on the Advisory Board of CASSIE, the Consortium for Analysis of Student Success through International Education, a federally funded research project that expands the empirical evidence on international education and student outcomes by establishing a national databank and co-laboratory that enables a quantitative approach to understanding the impact of international education experiences on college success.
He received a Fulbright International Education Award to India in 2016, and he was invited by the US Embassy in Greece to conduct training workshops on building capacity for study abroad in Greece in 2019.
The Fulbright Scholar Program and the experience I gained from it allowed me to think a lot about the student experience with an empathetic lens... It helped me rethink what I do with my own study abroad programs at NYU.
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