Forty-eight U.S. teachers and school administrators were selected in March to participate in this summer's Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad to India, Peru, and Senegal. 

The Seminars Abroad Program provides short-term seminars abroad for U.S. educators in the social sciences and humanities to improve their understanding and knowledge of the peoples and cultures of other countries. Educational lectures and activities are designed specifically for the group, including visits to local schools and organizations, meetings with educators and students, and visits to cultural sites. Participants draw on their experiences abroad to create new, cross-cultural curricula for their classrooms and school systems back in the U.S.

Three seminars will take place this summer:

• For K-8 teachers: "Exploring Indigenous Heritage" in Peru
• For secondary school teachers: "Sustainable Development & Social Change" in India
• For postsecondary faculty: "Religion & Diversity" in Senegal
  
  

One of this summer's Senegal program participants is Dr. Kay Gandy, a professor in the School of Teacher Education at Western Kentucky University. Dr. Gandy hopes that this experience will allow her to help teachers become culturally sensitive to the diverse students of today’s and tomorrow’s classrooms. "The lessons I’ll glean from this experience will be shared with the teachers I train,” Dr. Gandy said. "They need to be able to support student diversity and create a learning environment of understanding and empathy. Only by participating in experiential activities and actively engaging with the culture, can we expect to gain a deeper understanding of a very different culture."

We can't wait to see how this year's participants incorporate their experiences abroad into their classrooms, schools, and communities!

IFLE will hold competitions for three grant programs this spring and summer:

Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad
(application available in late May or early June)

The GPA program provides grants for overseas projects in training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies by teachers, students, and faculty. 

Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language
(application available in late June or early July)

The UISFL program provides funding for institutions of higher education with limited resources to help them plan, develop, and carry out programs to strengthen and improve undergraduate instruction in international studies and foreign languages. 

Title VI American Overseas Research Centers
(application available in late June or early July)

The AORC program provides grants to establish or operate overseas research centers that promote postgraduate research, exchanges, and area studies.

Notices Inviting Applications (NIA’s) will be posted on the programs' respective websites when the competitions begin accepting applications. Information on these dates will be posted as it becomes available. 

We hope you'll pass these opportunities on to others in your network!

Ocean County College (OCC), a public two-year community college in the State of New Jersey, established a Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the end of 2015 with support from IFLE's Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language (UISFL) Program. The Center will provide an opportunity for OCC students to participate in projects, presentations, and discussions about the Middle East and Northern Africa.

In addition to supporting the new center on campus, the UISFL grant also made possible OCC's first "Study Abroad in Morocco" seminar in May 2015. Grant funding will allow 24 more students to participate in the second annual Moroccan travel seminar scheduled for summer 2016. 

by Roger Beck, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellow, South Africa, FY 1982

The Fulbright-Hays DDRA award provides a truly life changing experience for those fortunate enough to receive one. My award to study cross-frontier interaction along the Cape Colony border in the early 1800s took me to Scotland, England, the Netherlands, and throughout the then Cape Province. Researching missionary records in England and Scotland led to a lifelong interest in missionary activity, resulting in a number of publications. While in England I gave scholarly papers at the University of London and at Oxford University.

In South Africa I spent several months researching in the Cape Archives and South African Library, both in Cape Town. I also spent three months in the Africana Archives at Rhodes University, and traveled by car and foot all along the old Cape Colony border. In the Cape Archives I discovered a Cape Town merchant’s business journal, and used the information therein to shape my first published article. I also gave scholarly presentations at the University of Cape Town, the University of the Western Cape, Rhodes University, and the University of the Witwatersrand. I remain in contact with many South African friends I made during my Fulbright year.

For thirty years now I have taught African and South African history. Some of my publications include a History of South Africa, now in a second edition, and a classic Afrikaans monograph I translated into English. My DDRA award made all this and more possible. It has been my pleasure and honor then to have since served on a number of Fulbright review panels, and thereby continue Senator Fulbright’s legacy.

The Title VI Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at Georgia State University will host the "Faculty in International Business: Globalization Workshops" conference at the beginning of June. These workshops are designed to help U.S. business faculty to bring international context into the classroom and to expand their classroom knowledge and skills .This signature event is offered as a part of the Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) Consortium, consisting of eleven CIBERs and led by GSU-CIBER. Organizers of the event are offering a number of Faculty Fellowship Awards to help defray participation costs for faculty members from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), two year colleges and institutions, and those with little or no professional development funds.

The Foreign Language Program Office of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Cryptologic School, the CIA Learning Enterprise/Intelligence Language Division, the Foreign Service Institute, and the Defense Language and National Security Education Office are pleased to announce the Curriculum Design Language Education and Resources Network (LEARN) workshop, which will be held on Monday, August 8th - Wednesday, August 10th, at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.. The goal of this LEARN workshop is to provide practical and tangible tools that can be used in the language teaching environment along with conceptual ideas that stretch beyond best practices being used today. 

Subscribe to IFLE's YouTube channel to keep up with our latest webinars and grant program videos. Don't miss our latest webinars on Study Abroad Safety and Zika Virus & Study Abroad.

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We want to hear from you! Do you have suggestions for webinar topics? Ideas for things to include in future newsletters? Send them to Carolyn Collins at carolyn.collins@ed.gov .