UB Faculty Member, Six Students Win Fulbright Awards

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A University at Buffalo faculty member and six recent graduates of the university have received Fulbright grants to lecture and study abroad this semester.

Jack Meacham, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Psychology, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Grant to lecture in Bosnia and Herzegovinia. Meacham will use the grant to lecture on multiculturalism and diversity at the University of Sarajevo through February.

A UB faculty member since 1972 and department chair from 1999-02, Meacham is internationally recognized for his research on human development. A long-time advocate for multicultural higher education, he has published widely on diversity and multicultural issues, and delivered many invited presentations on how to incorporate diversity into curricula, including the keynote address to the 2000 Michael Tilford Conference on Diversity and Multiculturalism.

He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Milton Plesur Award for excellence in teaching from the UB undergraduate Student Association.

The six students receiving post-baccalaureate fellowships through the Fulbright Student Program constitutes the largest such group in recent memory, notes Mark Ashwill, director of the World Languages Institute and Fulbright program advisor. The student program is designed to give recent B.S./B.A. graduates, master's and doctoral candidates, and young professionals and artists opportunities for personal development and international experience. Most grantees plan their own programs. Projects may include university coursework, independent library or field research, classes in a music conservatory or art school, special projects in the social or life sciences, or a combination.

The students, all of whom graduated from UB in May, and their projects are:

o Preethi Govindaraj of Williamsville, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration. Govindaraj will travel to Singapore to explore how the internship program at INSEAD, a global business school with campuses in Singapore and France, is administered, and analyze the impact that a quality program can have on students, schools and employers.

o Kristin Karl of Victor, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in French and linguistics. Karl will work as a teaching assistant in a high school in France.

o Alexis Lemon of Baldwinsville, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in Social Sciences Interdisciplinary and French. Lemon will travel to Greece to study the relationship between the institution of marriage and social modernization in Greece by comparing traditions from a number of regions, including both urban and rural areas.

o Nathan McMurray of Amherst, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science. McMurray's project will focus on the social and legal effects of Korea's constitutional reforms since 1987. He plans to examine how constitutional reform has impacted the rule of law in Korea, both in terms of the government's effectiveness in enforcing the rule of law and in the people's attitudes towards their legal system. Nathan graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science.

o Tina Song of Williamsville, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in political science and Spanish. Song will travel to Bogota, Colombia, to conduct a study of female political participation focusing on voter turnout, issues most important to Colombian women who vote, and their participation as officials in the government, among other areas.

o Andrea Vossler of Wellsville, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree in French and history. Vossler will work as a teaching assistant in a high school in France.

In addition, through the Fulbright Scholar Program, UB will host two foreign faculty members for the 2002-03 academic year.

Dalia Marcinkeviciene, chair of the Women's Studies Center at Vilnius University in Vilnius, Lithuania, will conduct research on "Lithuanian Women in Transition."

Farhat Surve, senior lecturer in the Department of Physics at Nowrosjee Wadia College in Pune, Maharashtra State, India, will conduct research on "Augmentation of Open-Ended Stimuli to the Physics Laboratory."

For half a century, the Fulbright program has been recognized as the flagship program in international educational exchange.

Selection is a highly competitive, peer-review process conducted by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. It is administered by the United State Information Agency and awarded by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

For further information about the Fulbright program, contact Ashwill at 645-2292, or ashwill@buffalo.edu. UB's Fulbright program Web site can be viewed at http://wings.buffalo.edu/fulbright.