The International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office recently awarded more than $66.3 million in fiscal year (FY) 2022 new grants under five Title VI programs. The awards will help strengthen the capacity of American education to provide instruction in modern foreign languages, international business, and world area and international studies at institutions of higher education across the United States. In addition to supporting foreign language and area studies expertise, grantees of the following programs will use their awards to establish collaborations with minority-serving institutions and community colleges and to develop programs that expand global opportunities for K–16 educators.

IFLE also made FY 2022 non-competing continuation awards for the following programs:

This past summer, 89 U.S. educators and administrators from across the country participated in six Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad with funding provided by the Department of Education. Participants traveled to the Philippines, Hungary, Norway, Israel, Morocco, and Argentina (right: educators visit a classroom in Argentina). The seminars were customized for approximately 16 elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level participants, who spent four weeks in the host country to acquire information to develop new or to improve existing curriculum projects, observe school administration best practices, and to engage with educators and people from different cultures.

The Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad program (SA) provides U.S. educators in the arts, social sciences, and humanities with opportunities to participate in short-term seminars abroad to improve their understanding and knowledge of the peoples and cultures of other countries. Since 2008, the Fulbright-Hays SA program has conducted 56 seminars with 890 participants in 39 different countries – the curriculum projects and outreach activities that have resulted from these seminars have reached tens of thousands of American students and colleagues in diverse educational settings and communities.

The program featured site visits (left: participants visit Goree Island) and opportunities for learning about the Senegalese culture. A highlight of the trip was a community service day, during which participants visited a school for blind children near the city of Ziguinchor, and donated clothing and educational materials.

Participants shared the following reflection on the program: “The Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad enriched our professional and personal perspectives about the culture and languages of the people in Senegal. Studying in Senegal gave us a unique opportunity to interact not only with Senegalese educators, but also with religious leaders, students in public schools, government officials, education leaders, artists, and business owners. The GPA experience allowed us to continue our research, learn and improve our language proficiency skills in French and Wolof, as well as infuse our curriculum with new cultural knowledge for the benefit of our students and colleagues.”

The Fulbright-Hays GPA program provides grants to institutions and private, nonprofit education entities that organize programs for K–12 teachers, college students, and faculty to engage in short-term or long-term overseas projects focused on training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies. GPA short-term projects include seminars, curriculum development, and group research or study. GPA long-term projects support advanced intensive overseas programs that focus on languages, the humanities, or social sciences.

After a postponement of two years due to COVID-related disruptions, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) Center for European Studies (CES) was able to finally hold its Brussels Study Tour in summer 2022. The tour provided a week-long, guided opportunity for 25 educators from across the U.S. to learn about the European Union (EU) and its institutions in situ. Many of the K–14 teachers were sponsored by American universities and teach a variety of subjects to different grade levels of students. UW-Madison's CES supported the participation of Adam Wimberly (right), a high school teacher from Kimberly, Wisconsin, in one of the three tours held in summer 2022.

Wimberly visited several EU institutions during the trip, including the European Parliament, European Union Council, European Commission, and European External Action Service. The study group also took a train from Brussels to Luxembourg to visit the Court of Justice of the European Union, which proved inspirational for Wimberly. Prior to the tour, Wimberly had not included EU law in his curriculum, however, he now plans to feature the EU Court of Justice in comparative lessons for his American Justice class.

Before the trip (his first to Brussels), Wimberly had thought of the European Union as a complicated bureaucracy. After participating in the tour, he remarked that “the EU plays a significant role in making people’s lives easier around the globe,” recognizing the EU's international significance in areas like setting the global standard for privacy laws. Wimberly shared that he ended the trip with a new appreciation for the accomplishments of the EU as a supranational mode of governance.

The Brussels Study Tour is the result of a collaboration between European studies centers at the University of Pittsburgh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Florida International University, UW-Madison, and others. The Center for European Studies at UW-Madison is proud to foster transatlantic outreach activities that inspire teachers and promote a better understanding of European affairs, and is able to support these activities through grants from the EU Erasmus+ program and the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI National Resource Centers program.

How can we teach students about international relations using a social media platform? How can students experience the sights, sounds, and smells of a city abroad without stepping foot onto a plane?

These are some of the imaginative questions explored by the nine community college instructors who participated in the Stanford Global Studies Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) fellowship program. Over the past year, the fellows worked closely with Stanford partners to creatively introduce global themes into their courses. The fellows represented eight schools across California, and their projects spanned a wide range of disciplines, from business and public affairs to media studies and art history.

Chris McBride, professor of English and humanities at the College of Marin, said, “Global awareness leads to an understanding of all elements of the world we inhabit. Teaching students about the world can empower them to make more informed decisions in all types of situations.” McBride's project looked at ways to use international film to globalize humanities courses. 

Holly Piscopo, professor of history at Sacramento City College, said, “I loved the opportunity to sink into scholarship on globalizing curriculum for an entire year. If I had to pick my favorite part of the EPIC fellowship, it would have to be the opportunity to work in a community of colleagues who are passionate about globalizing the community college experience. Especially after the isolation of the COVID years, it was energizing to build an intentional community.” Piscopo’s project focused on connecting her students to Stanford’s “Life in Quarantine” archive.

McBride, Piscopo, and the other fellows had an opportunity to present their final projects at the annual EPIC Symposium in May, which was attended by more than 60 people who discussed the challenges and opportunities of internationalizing curricula at community colleges.

The symposium concluded with a panel about the Global Educators Network (GEN). Established in 2020, GEN is led by former EPIC participants and is open to community college instructors worldwide. It aims to empower community college educators to engage with global themes and instructional resources, as well as international dialog, research, and teaching strategies. “I love coming [to the EPIC symposium] because it’s a chance to step out, hear about the wonderful projects, and get reinvigorated,” said GEN Executive Director Danni Redding Lapuz, dean of social science and creative arts at Skyline College. “And that’s also what GEN is about. It brings us together … and brings us back to the thing that we’re all passionate about.”

The Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) provides professional development opportunities for K–12 teachers and community college instructors and professors and is partially funded by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers grant.

The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) is pleased to share a virtual exhibit created by Lydia Hill (right), a student of Howard University's School of Business who received one of AIIS' Digital India Learning (DIL) summer 2022 student fellowships. 

The DIL student fellowships supported digital sonic and visual projects. The five recipients carried out original projects using the resources of the two AIIS research centers in India (the Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology and the Center for Art and Archaeology) and resulted in the creation of a digital exhibition, digital curriculum, or other creative products intended for varied audiences.

Hill's exhibit, “A Peek Into Indigenous Furniture: Through the Eyes of Lydia Hill,” focuses on cultural artifacts of functionality, such as furniture and other accoutrements intended to accommodate bodies. It incorporates a first-person essay in which Hill weaves together a discussion of the particular contexts of the cultural artifacts and insights into the echoes she discerns with African-American cultural traditions and practices.

Hill stated, “Throughout this exhibit, I take viewers along my journey of understanding the relationship between functionality, style, and Indian furniture. This is through the eyes of an African American woman. So I am taking my own experiences and my own relationship with my culture to apply to these indigenous furniture pieces. These pieces were specifically chosen because of either my curiosity or parallelism to my own heritage. This fellowship was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It is one that I will carry with me into all of my projects going forward. To be able to challenge myself in a completely different environment and create something that is really close to my heart is quintessential to the type of professional I feel I am meant to be.”

AIIS is the recipient of a FY 2020-2023 Title VI American Overseas Research Center grant, which provides partial funding for the DIL fellowship program.

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Have you received a FLAS fellowship or participated in a Fulbright-Hays grant program? Join our alumni groups on LinkedIn.

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We seek motivated students who are eager to learn and work as part of our team as an unpaid full- or part-time intern during the summer, fall, and/or spring. Visit our website for more information.

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.