Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: Hispanic Serving Institutions

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni based at Hispanic Serving Institutions.

Alumni panelists:

Christopher M. Bellitto is Professor of History at Kean University in New Jersey, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval history. A specialist in medieval and church history, his latest book is Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue (Georgetown University Press, 2023). He has twice won grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been Visiting Scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary and a Fulbright Specialist in New Zealand and the Netherlands. Dr. Bellitto also serves as series Editor in Chief of Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition and Academic Editor at Large for Paulist Press. He offers public lectures frequently and is also a media commentator on church history and contemporary Catholicism.

Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez: unrepentant border crosser, ex-dj, and Xicano writer. Professor of Creative Writing and Hispanic Southwest Literatures and Cultures in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico, he has also taught and lectured at universities across the United States, Latin America, and Europe. He has held Fulbright Fellowships in Spain, and Turkey, and served as a Fulbright Specialist in Poland. His books include, Luego el silencio (2014), One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen (2015), En el Lost ‘n Found (2016), Yabancı [Foreigner] Extranjero (2019) and Nocturno de frontera (2020). Commenting on his writing, Junot Díaz has said “Santiago Vaquera is literary lightning. He impresses, he illuminates, and when he is at his best you are left shaken, in awe.”

Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni based at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Alumni panelists:

Olive Vassell  was a 2022 Fulbright Specialist to Namibia, where she was hosted by Namibia University of Science and Technology. She is an Associate Professor at the University of the District of Columbia.

Patricia Lynch was a 2023 Fulbright Specialist at Gorontalo Health Polytechnic in Indonesia. She is an Associate Professor of Nutrition/Dietetics and Director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics at Virginia State University.

Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: U.S. Community Colleges

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni based at U.S. community colleges.

Alumni panelists:

Joyce Maxwell was a 2022 Fulbright Specialist to Poland, where she was hosted by Stanisłow Staszic State University of Applied Sciences in Pile. She is an Associate Professor at Union College of Union County. 

Vilma Fuentes was a 2017 Fulbright Specialist to Ukraine, where she was hosted by the Kyiv College of Light Industry. She is the Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs at Santa Fe College.

Information Session and Alumni Speaker Panel: U.S. Liberal Arts Institutions

This information session provides prospective U.S. applicants with an in-depth look at the Fulbright Specialist Program and the opportunity to hear from a panel of Fulbright Specialist alumni based at U.S. Liberal Arts Institutions

Alumni panelists:

Laura L. Behling, Professor of English at University of Puget Sound, has teaching and scholarly interests 20th-21st-century U.S. literature and culture, as well as health humanities. As a Fulbright Scholar, she taught at Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic (2003) and served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the American University of Bulgaria in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria (2018). Her scholarly publications include: Gross Anatomies: Fictions of the Physical in American Literature (Susquehanna University Press/Associated University Presses, 2008) and The Masculine Woman in America, 1890-1935 (University of Illinois Press, 2001).  In addition, she edited Reading, Writing, and Research: Undergraduate Students as Scholars in Literary Studies (CUR [Council on Undergraduate Research], 2010) and The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans (Jossey-Bass, 2014).  For more than a decade, Behling has served in academic leadership, including positions as vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Ted Schwalbe is an emeritus faculty member at SUNY Fredonia, where he spent over 40 years as a Distinguished Service Professor. He was also chair of the Department of Communication for 19 years. He has written and been principal investigator for four major U.S. State Department media training grants in Albania, Bulgaria, southern Africa, and Turkey. The last grant involved teaching students to produce films about social issues in their cities and involved 72 students in 6 cities in Turkey. He has also been a very active member of the WNY/NWPA Fulbright Association chapter where he has served on the Board for over 20 years.

Schwalbe’s first Fulbright was U.S. Scholar Award to Bulgaria in 1997, and he has also received a U.S. Scholar award to Hungary (2004) and Fulbright Specialist awards to Swaziland (2002), Namibia (2007), and Albania (2017). Most of his teaching and research took place in Eastern/Central Europe and sub-Saharan Africa and focused on independent journalism and private media operation.