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• Brenda Alling, Office of Marketing and Communications, 360-546-9601, brenda_alling@vancouver.wsu.edu
91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø is Full-up on Fulbrights
VANCOUVER, Wash. - It's no secret that Fulbright scholarships don't grow on trees. Since its inception in 1946 Fulbright has accumulated approximately 300,000 alumni. This year approximately 1,100 faculty and staff nationwide will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. So what are the chances that two Fulbrights are awarded in one family at the same time to the same place? Or that two Fulbrights are awarded in the course of one career? At Washington State University Vancouver that's exactly what's happened.
Bonnie and Barry Hewlett
Barry Hewlett, Ph.D., is a professor of anthropology at 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø. His wife, Bonnie Hewlett, Ph.D., RN, is visiting professor in the department of anthropology at 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø. Both are headed to Ethiopia on Fulbright Scholar grants to teach and conduct research at Hawassa University during the 2010/2011 academic year. The Hewletts are tasked with developing an anthropology department at Hawassa University. They are the first Fulbrighters assigned to the 10-year-old university. They will spend 80 percent of their time teaching and 20 percent pursuing independent research projects. Bonnie will be working on women's life histories in narrative and Barry will be researching how children acquire medical knowledge.
Barry traveled to Africa for the first time in 1971 and began conducting field research there in 1973. He has since made more than 20 trips to the Central African Republic and other central African countries where he conducted field research and felt fortunate to live with and learn from the people. Results of Barry's extensive research are between the covers of five books he's written or co-written.
Barry is currently on a quest to pen a sixth book and Bonnie is working on her second, which is under contact with Oxford University Press. A passion for Africa fueled Barry to go surfing online one day looking for grants or scholarships that might enable him to teach anthropology to Africans, something he has always wanted to do. In his Internet wanders, Barry came across the Fulbright program and Hawassa was one of very few universities in the world looking for an anthropologist so he decided to write a proposal.
He took the opportunity to Bonnie and encouraged her to apply as well. Both completed and submitted their proposals independent of each other, not sharing what they had written. They didn't think their chances of getting the grants were very good. They never even really talked about it after they applied. They just put the whole thing out of their minds and went about their daily business.
Then one day six months later Bonnie got an email saying she'd been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to Ethiopia. She rushed to Barry's office to show him the email only to discover he'd gotten one too. Lucky they had both selected Ethiopia as their first choice of placement. Their second and third choices did not match up at all.
In addition to the opportunity to teach anthropology to Africans, the Hewletts are excited about the university's location in the middle of the Rift Valley, home of the earliest members of the human family and extensive ethnic diversity.
"We are so honored to have been selected to help build the anthropology department at Hawassa University," said Bonnie. "We've heard Hawassa is a beautiful, modern city. We look forward to getting to know the people and establishing relationships."
Andrew L. Giarelli
Andrew Giarelli is an adjunct professor of English at 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø. He has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture in the Slovak Republic during the 2010/2011 academic year. Giarelli will teach undergraduate and graduate courses in American literature and American studies at Comenius University, the nation's largest and oldest university, in the capital, Bratislava.
Since 2007 Giarelli has taught American literature, Shakespeare, nonfiction writing and technical writing at 91³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏÍø. He has also taught at Portland State University, Utah State University and New York University.
This is his second Fulbright. In 1993 he was a Fulbright professor of journalism and American studies at the University of Malta in Valletta, Malta.
His lecturing grant is titled "The American Experience: Folklore, Journalism, Literature." He will be teaching future Slovak teachers of English and American culture in the University's School of Education.
"I'm a teaching professor who thrives on the classroom experience, and a Fulbright is the ultimate expression of that," Giarelli said. "You get to excite foreign students about your subject and challenge yourself in the process. Teaching in Malta 17 years ago as a Fulbrighter broadened my horizons and led to new research and writing interests. I am very fortunate to have a second opportunity: Bratislava, here I come!"
Fulbright
Sponsored by the United States Department of State, the Fulbright Program is America's flagship international educational exchange program. It was established under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and it operates in more than 155 countries. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement.
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