Greek Lessons: Conjugating the Fulbright Experience

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Greek Lessons Conjugating the Fulbright
Experience

• Bill New
• Beloit College
• Senior Fulbright Fellow, Spring 2003

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What I did on my Fulbright

• Spent less time at the University of Athens
  teaching than I had expected.
• Did field research in an elementary school in
  Athens.
• Worked with the Fulbright Commission in Athens.
• Went to Greek language classes.
• Explored Athens and Greece with my family.
• Visited Cyprus and Germany as an Inter-Country
  Lecturer.

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Some bad photos
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Lasting connections

• Member of Board of Advisors for a youth-oriented
  NGO in Cyprus.
• Relationships with people and places in Athens.
• Knowledge of Greek.
• New friends in American Studies in Leipzig.
• Member of Fulbright Peer Review Committee for
  Southern Europe.

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Who can become a Fulbright scholar?

• Anyone with an interest and the willingness to
  put together a good application.
• Anyone with the willingness to be a world
  citizen and engage with the unfamiliar and
  uncertain.
• Anyone willing to share what they know, and know
  how to do.
• It is much more difficult to get a Fulbright to
  teach in Paris than one to teach in Armenia.

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How to become a Fulbright Scholar

• Find a place you really want to visit, learn
  about it, and make some connections in-country.
• Communicate early and often with the relevant
  program officers at the CIES office in
  Washington.
• Write a careful program proposal that shows your
  seriousness and your preparation for work in the
  country you have chosen.
• Consider alternatives to your first pick.
• Be patient this can be a long, often
  Kafka-esque, bureaucratic process.

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Why be Fulbright scholar?