July 1, 2003

Contact: Hodgie Bricke, Office of International Programs, (785) 864-4960, hbricke@ku.edu.

4 more KU faculty receive Fulbright awards for research, teaching abroad

LAWRENCE -- Four University of Kansas faculty members were selected for Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards for research and teaching abroad in the 2003-04 academic year.

These four Fulbright Senior Scholar awards, in addition to two Fulbright-Hays grants awarded to two KU faculty earlier this spring, bring the total number of Fulbright awards to KU faculty for the 2003-04 academic year to six, according to Hodgie Bricke, who coordinates all Fulbright programs in the KU Office of International Programs.

To date, more than 263 KU faculty have received Fulbright grants since the program's beginning more than 50 years ago.

The senior scholar awards will enable KU faculty to study and work in Azerbaijan, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru. Faculty receiving the awards are listed below.

Melissa Birch, associate professor of business, received a lecturing/research grant for study at the Catholic University of Paraguay in Asuncion. Birch will teach in a new master's degree program in public and business administration, and she will collaborate on the development of curriculum for this program, including materials on international business and business ethics. In addition, she will be associated with an independent research institute with a special focus on regional integration where she will conduct research on competition policy in Mercosur, a regional trade agreement that links Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Birch will be in Paraguay during either the spring semester or summer 2004.

Bartholomew "Bart" Dean, assistant professor of anthropology, received a Fulbright grant to Peru, where he will be affiliated with the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos from May to September 2004. While in Peru, Dean will teach and conduct research in collaboration with the National University's graduate program in Amazonian studies, which he co-founded in 1999. In addition, a general research fund award from KU will enable him to launch a research project with Peter Herlihy, associate professor of geography, on the social and ecological implications of indigenous land titling in the Peruvian Amazon.

Laura Hobson Herlihy, lecturer in the KU Center of Latin American Studies, will lecture and conduct research for five months in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. She will teach classes in anthropology at the Universidad de las Regiones Autonómas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense, the only indigenous university in Central America. Herlihy will research how gender, sexuality and discourse help define and maintain the indigenous Miskito cultural identity within state and global economies. She additionally will help develop a sound archive of Miskitu music at URACCAN.

Mehrangiz Najafizadeh, associate professor of sociology, will lecture on international issues in advanced and graduate level courses at Khazar University in Baku, Azerbaijan. In addition, this Fulbright grant will allow Najafizadeh to continue her research on women's place and identity in Azerbaijan during the Soviet era and during the ongoing period of transition.

As one of the oldest and largest international exchange programs in the world, the Fulbright Scholar Program offers grants for college and university faculty and administrators to lecture and conduct research in 140 countries. The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.