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Training for Humphrey fellows
ELI hosting visiting international professionals
UB’s English Language Institute provides some English training for visiting Humphrey fellows, but also focuses on many areas that participants need for research and instruction. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE
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“I wish I could do more to spread the word about this fellowship so that others have the same opportunities to improve things in their countries.”
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“The educational experience in Serbia is unlike the American experience. This program at UB will help me make the transition to an American university.”
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“This program will help us adapt, not just to a language, but to a culture, a way of living and a way of learning.”
Seated comfortably at a table in the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement in UB’s Student Union, Branko Veselinovic has his hands folded, his eyes forward and focused. With hair as neat as his white polo shirt, he looks like a television news anchor.
“What do you do for a living,” he is asked.
“I’m a television news anchor,” he says.
Veselinovic is among a group of diverse international professionals who arrived on July 16 and who will spend three weeks at UB preparing for their fellowships in a prestigious 10-month professional enrichment program.
UB is among six colleges and universities in the country providing critical preliminary training for this year’s participants in the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program. The Humphrey program is designed for mid-career professionals who come to the U.S. for non-degree training and professional networking, according to Keith Otto, program director of UB’s English Language Institute (ELI).
“A small number of those chosen for a Humphrey fellowship have English test scores at the scale’s threshold,” Otto says. “It’s those participants that are sent to a pre-academic program, like what we’re running here at UB this summer.”
The ELI provides some English training involving pronunciation and accents. But the pre-academic program focuses on many of the areas that participants require for research and instruction.
“We’ll cover things like citation, putting together a bibliography and awareness of plagiarism, and how that’s defined in the American university context,” says Otto.
Veselinovic works for the Serbian national broadcasting corporation. Six months ago, he began anchoring the network’s primetime newscast. In addition to professional development, he says he’ll continue working on his PhD dissertation and hopes to pick up an assignment from the CNN international desk as well.
“The educational experience in Serbia is unlike the American experience,” says Veselinovic. “This program at UB will help me make the transition to an American university.”
Otto points out that Veselinovic’s transition is similar to what he hears from many international students who have never been in a format other than a lecture.
“Most of our participants completed their educational work without direct interaction with faculty,” he says. “They’re familiar with a system that didn’t leave room for debate and discussion. Our emphasis on student participation, on application and original ideas, is a new experience.”
Veselinovic’s work ethic is resident in his speech. He’s determined to succeed, but Otto says participants are not selected solely on determination and potential. He says Humphrey fellows are from countries that have a particular need for professionals in specific fields.
“They’re in education, public policy, economic development, for example,” says Otto. “We have a couple of people who are lawyers and judges in the human rights arena.”
Participants are chosen because they have at least five years of experience in their field. As a Humphrey fellow, they have been selected to attend programs at universities that focus on their specialty.
“Fellows that are going to Cornell for example, typically are going there because of Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life sciences,” says Otto. “People who are in the field of AIDS education and prevention might end up at Emory in order to work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Veselinovic will attend classes at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. So, too, will Alma Telibecirevic, a painter by professional who has been involved with organizing arts and cultural activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Over the past five years, her career shifted from the arts toward public relations for various human rights organizations.
As a Humphrey fellow, Telibecirevic says she’s excited about improving her professional knowledge, but sees the program as an opportunity to get an international perspective on her profession and how it’s managed elsewhere in the world.
“The fellowship will mean a significant change in our lives over the next year,” she says. “This program will help us adapt, not just to a language, but to a culture, a way of living and a way of learning.”
Otto says it’s important to stress that the purpose of the pre-academic program is not only to help refine English skills, but to provide the kind of cultural training Telibercirevic mentioned.
“Remember, English language skills are only part of the mission. We provide cultural orientation, from culture shock to time management to familiarizing participants with the U.S. government and the media,” says Otto. “We’ll do this through field trips, seminars and a volunteer service project.”
Roseline Sherman, an elementary school administrator from Liberia, was still excited about the trip to Niagara Falls participants took during their first weekend at UB.
“This is a whole new experience for me,” says Sherman.
She speaks English as her primary language, but hopes to improve on specifics of speech.
“I know my accent can be confusing and the fact that my final consonants are not always clear,” she says. “When I’m in front of a classroom, I want to speak standard English and that is one of the areas I hope to improve upon during this program.”
Public speaking is central to Sherman’s work as an educator, but Otto says that public-speaking skills also represent part of the pre-academic program.
“Each participant will have several opportunities to give presentations in a small group,” he says. “We leave time for feedback and how they presented information for an audience of non-experts in their field.”
By next summer, each participant will return home with knowledge that will help more than their careers.
“I wish I could do more to spread the word about this fellowship so that others have the same opportunities to improve things in their countries,” says Sherman.
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