KU News Release

KU faculty members awarded Fulbright grants to conduct research abroad

LAWRENCE — Three faculty members at the University of Kansas have won Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards for the 2008-09 academic year.

Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, associate professor in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program and the Department of Theatre and Film, has received a Fulbright grant to teach and conduct research in Senegal. She will be affiliated for the academic year with the University of Gaston-Berger in St. Louis, where she will teach a course titled Global Narratives: Cultural Representations in American Literature, which will emphasize issues of religion, gender and ethnicity/migration in various literary works. The title of Ajayi-Soyinka’s research project is “Gender Relationships and the Challenges of Global Evangelism in Lebou Communities, Senegal.” For her interview-based research, she will focus on religion and investigate the impact of global forces on gender relations, especially the empowerment of women in contemporary Lebou communities.

John Head, professor of law, received a Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award to teach and conduct research at the University of Trento in northern Italy. During the spring semester, Head will teach a course to graduate law students on international economic law and institutions, one of his specialties as a legal scholar. He also will give several lectures on Chinese dynastic law. This is Head’s second Fulbright award; he went to China in 1994.

The University of Gaston-Berger and the University of Trento are partner institutions with KU.

Laura Herlihy, lecturer in Latin American studies, has received a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Program grant to conduct research in Mexico. The grant is administered by the International Education Programs Service of the U.S. Department of Education. Herlihy’s research examines the social and political status of indigenous Zapotec women in Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte. Her main research question asks how the traditional practices and customs of Ixtlan de Juarez, an autonomous township that is governed by Mexican customary law, impact Zapotec women’s access to social justice and political leadership. Herlihy will partner with a team of Zapotec women to interview and collect oral histories from 60 Zapotec women.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. It was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The program is sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington, D.C. KU’s International Programs coordinates all the Fulbright programs at the university. More than 283 KU faculty members have received Fulbright grants.

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