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| Chase Stoudenmire visited the American Corner (U.S.-funded English language library) in his Georgian city, Kutaisi. (2013, Boren fellowship) |
I’ve always found great opportunities at the University of
Arkansas. Working now as a graduate assistant in the Study Abroad office is a
perfect blend of my personal and academic interests.
As a graduate student in History, I study how the United
States has created and maintained state-sponsored educational exchange programs
as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The friendly exchange of students and
scholars creates networks of mutual interest and understanding that benefit
people across the globe – supporting such programs has long been a special zone
of bipartisan agreement. International exchange makes our nation, much like our
campus, more culturally and intellectually robust.
I first darkened the door of our home, the McNalley House,
in 2009 while working on an application for a U.S. Student Fulbright grant. I
came around again in 2012 while working on an application for a Boren
Fellowship. Both times the staff here provided valuable guidance, encouragement
and support. I’m grateful to this place for helping me get started on my path
to two of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
First as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant and later as
a Boren Fellow, I spent two years living, teaching and conducting research in
Georgia, my adopted home away from home in the beautiful South Caucasus
mountains of Eurasia. The opportunities were incredible and the experiences
were rich. And there were special layers of joy for me as a student from the
University of Arkansas. The internationally renowned Fulbright Scholarship
program is one of the most enduring legacies of one of Arkansas’ proudest sons,
Sen. J. William Fulbright. And by some chance I ended up living and working in
a city where one of my UofA professors was born and raised, opening up
wonderful paths to friendship and collaboration.
Now I’ve joined the Study Abroad team for a semester to work
on some outreach projects. In this sense I feel a bit like an astronaut who
used to fly to the moon, and now I’ve come back to work on the launch pad
preparing new astronauts for their own journeys.
Over the course of the semester I’ll be leading some efforts
to strengthen our outreach regarding study abroad opportunities on campus. We
have programs for everyone, but I’ll spend most of my time focusing on two
goals. First, we want to increase the number of applications for U.S. Student
Fulbright grants we produce on this campus. The Fulbright program offers a
diverse array of grants for teaching, study and research. Any U.S. citizen with
a bachelor’s degree is eligible for a Fulbright grant – you’ll hear more about
that on this blog soon. And second, we want to pay some attention to study
abroad opportunities for graduate students at the UofA. Many of our faculty-led
programs can offer graduate credit, and graduate students are often able to
create unique individualized study abroad opportunities for themselves. Many
may tend to think of study abroad as an undergraduate experience, but this office
and this team is here to support graduate students as well.
Here’s to a great semester and sending many more hogs
abroad!
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| A friend and fellow UofA alum and I holding a large Razorback flag in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, one of Georgia’s neighbors in the Caucasus. (2011, Fulbright grant) |
University of Arkansas
students who are interested in overseas opportunities like the Fulbright
and Boren scholarships can get more information from Chase at cstouden@uark.edu.
Check out this blog from Amy, a recent U of A grad and Fulbright teaching assistant in Thailand, at: https://sameamebutdifferent.wordpress.com/
For more information about the Fulbright Grant Opportunities and how to apply, visit http://eca.state.gov/fulbright/fulbright-programs
