To Minsk (Минск) and Beyond!

What is "Fulbright"?!

I have had many friends/family ask me this question, so I though I should start by providing a brief explanation.  

To quote from the "About Fulbright" page (http://fulbright.state.gov/about.html): "The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.  The Program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and is sponsored by the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA)....  Currently, the Fulbright Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide."

While there are many different categories for Fulbright grants, mine falls within the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, which sends American scholars to approximately 125 countries, where they lecture and/or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields.  My host institution in Minsk is Belarusian State University (School of Business and Management of Technology), where I will be teaching in the MBA program and conducting research/consulting with local and national businesses and civic groups on human resource development and performance management.  

In terms of the process for getting a Fulbright grant, the following describes it nicely (http://fulbright.state.gov/apply/selection): "Fulbright grantees are selected through an open and merit-based competition. This ensures that the most qualified applicants are fairly chosen in a way that contributes to the main goals of the program: to provide overseas experience to individuals... and to promote mutual understanding and benefit through contributions to both host and home communities... selection is a binational collaborative process that involves the input of partner agencies, U.S. Embassies, Fulbright Commissions and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FSB).  In general, selection is made on the basis of academic and professional record, language preparation, feasibility of the project or course of study, personal qualifications and preference factors established by the FSB and the Fulbright Commissions."

Of course I have zero language qualifications related to Russian and Belarusian, but lucky for me all MBA courses at BSU are taught in English...  so I dodged that bullet!  And in terms of other qualifications, I think that my diverse/cross-disciplinary academic/research background (sometimes considered by other academics as an unnecessary hindrance) actually really helped me in the Fulbright selection process, particularly as my background specifically relates to the very unique sociopolitical, economic, and cultural context of post-Soviet Belarus.      

 
Below is a video about the Fulbright program (kind of long, but very interesting!). 


Fulbright Connects - Full from Fulbright Program on Vimeo.