Ashwill Receives Fulbright Grant to Vietnam

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Mark Ashwill of Clarence Center, director of the World Languages Institute and Fulbright Program advisor at the University at Buffalo, is the first American scholar to be awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant to Vietnam.

Ashwill spent January as a visiting scholar at the Department of Applied Linguistics in the Institute of Linguistics at the National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities in Hanoi, Vietnam. During that time, he made a series of presentations to researchers, faculty and students on post-Sept. 11 U.S. language policy, post-secondary foreign-language instruction, the uses of technology in American higher education and language-use programs, such as Languages Across the Curriculum.

He consulted with Institute of Linguistics colleagues on the development and application of national standards in relevant subjects, the local adaptation of the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) levels used by the U.S. government to train and assess the proficiency of foreign-language specialists and the development and measurement of intercultural competence.

He also worked on several projects with institute colleagues, including an inventory of Vietnamese behavioral culture (i.e., customs and manners) and a bilingual book to be published in Vietnam that consists of essay-length responses to questions asked by Vietnamese about various aspects of American culture and society.

In addition to his position at UB, Ashwill is executive director of the U.S.-Indochina Educational Foundation, Inc. (USIEF), a non-profit organization he founded in 2000. USIEF's mission is to contribute to the development of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam by offering some of those countries' most promising students the opportunity to pursue advanced education and training in the U.S., as well as to educate Americans about conditions in these countries.

Ashwill received his doctorate in education from UB in 1991.

The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program offers two-to-six-week grants to leading U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at academic institutions in 140 countries around the world.

Created to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, the Senior Specialists Program aims to increase the number of faculty and professionals who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. The program's purpose is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.