The number one question everyone has had is, "What is the Fulbright International Education Administrator's program?" This is followed by, "So what exactly are you going to be doing there?" or "Where are you going?". For this reason, I thought I'd start by providing a quick overview of my 3 weeks ahead.
About the Fulbright IEA Programs
The best way to summarize is that it is a study abroad program for university administrators. Since we can't get away from our jobs to participate in a traditional yearlong Fulbright Scholar Program, the IEA Seminar allows a short-term high-intensity experience related to our field. The goal is to start dialogue, develop relationships and bring us up to speed on current issues in higher education in England and Scotland. Through this we hope to become better at what we do.
Participants are selected from a wide variety of geographic, institutional and functional backgrounds. Some of us are already active in international education. Others are working on the periphery as they serve students in Career Services or Academic Advising. And still others are Deans, Directors or Associate Provosts. We all bring different backgrounds and have different ways to apply what we learn on the program.
There are currently Fulbright IEA programs in France, Germany, South Korea, India, Japan and the United Kingdom. You can read more about the programs and the application process on the following site: http://www.cies.org/iea/
About the 2013 UK Seminar
This is the first time there has been a UK Fulbright IEA. I am thrilled to participate in the inaugural journey. I will admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed when I received the 30 page program itinerary. We will visit 11 universities in 23 days, traveling from as far south as Brighton, England to as far north as Aberdeen, Scotland. Aside from the stress of how I will keep to my luggage allowance, I anticipate a whirlwind of learning and hope to use this blog to process it all.
I am looking foward to meeting the other participants almost as much as the host university visits. There are 19 other interesting people from all different areas of higher education. I will undoubtedly learn from them and develop new contacts.
The program starts with everyone arriving in London and transfering via coach to our first stop. Below is a brief rundown of our intinerary:
University of East Anglia
Imperial College London
University of Sussex
Royal Holloway, University of London
University of Birmingham
University of York
University of Durham
University of Stirling
Robert Gordon University
University of Aberdeen
University of Edinburgh
I hope you will follow along!