What to know about Fulbright Awards

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What to Know About Fulbright Awards

Please contact GFCR staff at grants@stolaf.edu before contacting funders.

Most people take between one and four years to gear up to apply for a Fulbright, so it pays to begin planning early! Fulbright offers Core Scholar experiences of 3 to 12 months in many sectors of the world. It used to be that one could have no more than two Fulbrights in a lifetime, but this rule no longer applies. There is no limit to the number of Fulbrights you can hold. Please consult the Powerpoint and videos below and then contact Melissa Flynn Hager to talk further. Many St. Olaf faculty have won Fulbrights and would be willing to tell you about the impact of their experiences. The key to Fulbright is to start dreaming and planning early, as it can take some time to decide where you want to go and engage a host institution.

Fulbright also offers a host of other opportunities, including the shorter-term (2-6 week) Fulbright Specialist Program, the International Education Administrators (IEA) Seminars and the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program. Please consult GFCR staff for more information.

Fulbright Scholar Program Workshop powerpoint

Fulbright Scholars videos

Four Types of Fulbright Awards

Lecturing
Research
Lecturing/research
Seminars

You have a much better chance of getting a Fulbright if you are willing to lecture or do a combination of lecture/research. The pure research opportunities are more competitive. Also, generally, the lecturing awards will offer more benefits.

English language skills are sufficient for most lecturing awards. Some of the Latin American countries require Spanish.If you identify a country or a specific opportunity of interest, it’s a good idea to contact the program officer and ask what the balance would be between lecturing and research. In some cases, you don’t have to lecture that much.

67%

of the opportunities are lecturing or lecturing/research

26%

are for research alone

are seminars

Notes from 2009 Fulbright Seminar at Macalester College (information and advice is still current)
Drafted by Melissa Flynn Hager

There is a Powerpoint of the Fulbright workshop we attended at Macalester on the Fulbright web site. Go to the web site, and then click on “campus reps” on the left side. You will see a big orange square: “Fulbright Workshop ppt.” There are some flyers, etc. there for download, too.

In early October, cies.org offers a directory of scholars in various fields who are visiting at U.S. campuses. Many people do not realize that you can contact these visitors and invite them to your campus. You can build connections that may serve you well in planning for your own Fulbright experience. You can make contacts and form relationships with visitors who may be able to invite you to their campuses or write a letter of invitation on your behalf.

There is no limit on how many you can invite. This is a good way to get contacts for your future and internationalize your campus for a small amount of money.

When you apply for a Fulbright award, the project statement is key—5 pages. Be sure there is no jargon specific to your field in the statement. Your project needs to be very understandable to non-specialists in your field.

Be sure to highlight both what you can offer the country you visit and what you will be able to bring back to your own institution and field when you return.

Why do you want to participate in a Fulbright?

Be clear about why your work is needed (your research) and why you need to go to country “x.” Reviewers will ask: “Couldn’t you do this work in the U.S.?” Most reviewers are Fulbright alumni. They will look for a demonstrated need to be in a particular country (for research).

Fulbright dollars are U.S. tax dollars at work, so the reviewers will look for applicants who write understandably (free of jargon) about their project and the compelling need to do that work in another country.

What will you bring back? Journal articles? A book? A completed joint project?

Collaborative projects are of interest both to your institution and your host institution.

If you are going for a lecturing award, talk about what you will teach, how you will deal with cultural differences and adjust your teaching style.

Reference letters are another key to success. Letter writers must be familiar with your academic work. One letter must come from your home institution, and two need to come from outside of your institution.
Be sure that neither of your letters from outside your institution come from the person who invited you to their overseas campus.

It’s often good to do your homework and go to cies.org or even to look up your identified host institution online. See who else has gone to this institution before you as a Fulbright scholar. You may be able to find out some of this on YouTube too.

If you are going for a lecture/research appointment, be sure to ask your program officer about the teaching load expected of you. What’s the balance?

Some countries have 2-3 month grants (Western Hemisphere, Distinguished Chairs program) Check the listings by country and discipline. Most Fulbrights are a semester or less now.

Germany has a large number of opportunities. Good chance of placement there.

These are good if you are interested in lecturing, teaching a specific seminar, helping to develop new programs, participating in faculty development or assessment of accreditation. These are mostly for faculty in the social sciences and humanities.

Specialist programs do not support individual research!

For the Specialist program, you can indicate that you are open to many world areas. CIES will matchmake between its roster of experts (which you would be joining) and countries.

You can wait for CIES to contact you or go at from a different approach: If you have a country and even a contact and program in mind, that’s fine, but you still must apply to the roster. Then your contact can request you. (I think the speaker said that you should allow four months from the time you are put on the roster to when you might be contacted.)

Your name will remain on the roster for five years. Then CIES requires that you take three years off. Then you can reapply and be back on for another five years.

English-speaking countries are more competitive — U.K., Australia, New Zealand.
However, opportunities in Canada are sometimes undersubscribed, so it can be more open there.

To better your chances for a Specialist assignment be sure to get a ROBUST letter of invitation from your contact.

“We look forward to having you come and teach THIS course and help us in THIS way. The letter should be tailored to fit the needs of the institution.

If you have a specific idea and you have a contact, talk to a program officer for advice on the best way to pursue it.

This program requires a match from St. Olaf, but there are lots of ways to set this up.

Small liberal arts colleges are great for this (also community colleges and technical colleges). Scholars come over here to teach. The benefit of hosting a scholar is that they teach, team-teach, help develop new programs, and participate in the community.

We could host a researcher, too. Researchers often have better experiences at smaller colleges—they are not just a number of small cog in a big wheel.