Sending a signal and making everyone whole
Administrators at Purdue University wanted to send a message about the value they place on the Fulbright scholars award. So they created the role of provost’s fellow for Fulbright faculty awards in 2017.
“The position sends a strong signal to the entire campus about the importance of the award to Purdue,” said Christopher J. Lukasik, an associate professor of English and American studies who is the first, and so far only, provost’s fellow.
Lukasik, a Fulbright alumnus, acts as a dedicated resource for faculty members interested in applying for the program. He helps recruit prospective participants, assists individual professors with their applications, and troubleshoots issues that arise.
In his role, he has also identified systemic hurdles that kept faculty members from applying for the grants. For example, for some professors, the award amount was less than their regular salary, so winning a Fulbright effectively meant taking a pay cut while abroad. Purdue instituted a “salary top-off” policy, making up the difference between the award amount and a professor’s full salary.
Lukasik works on a strategic level in other ways, consulting with administrators across campus about how increasing Fulbright participation can fit into their broader goals. Fulbrights are often the first step toward larger international partnerships such as study-abroad programs, faculty exchanges, and research collaborations, Lukasik said. And departments that send faculty members on Fulbrights typically see an increase in graduate applications from the host country.
Having an institutional commitment to the Fulbright program makes sense because it’s the only prestigious grant program open to almost every faculty member on campus, bringing international visibility and recognition to their research or teaching. “Fulbright awards can enhance the professional and personal development of our faculty,” Lukasik said, “whether you are an engineering or an English professor.”
Recent graduates and graduate students at the University of Florida frequently earn Fulbright student awards, but the institution wasn’t as successful on the scholars side.
When David L. Reed and his colleagues dug into the data, they found real variation between academic departments. Some departments had higher rates of participation, said Reed, Florida’s associate provost for strategic initiatives. But others discouraged professors from applying, seeing it as a burden for the department to have to cover recipients’ teaching assignments.
“They saw it as harmful for the department,” Reed said, “rather than incredible professional development for faculty.”
Florida leaders realized they needed a consistent institutional policy, so Reed convened a yearlong series of universitywide conversations to identify roadblocks to participation and find solutions. One problem identified in the discussions, during the 2018-19 academic year, was that because the Fulbright award goes to individual faculty members, the university and academic departments would sometimes not know that a professor had applied until they won the grant.
That left department chairs scrambling at the last minute to cover the recipient’s courseload and other duties. Florida began requiring professors to submit their applications through the university’s international center, giving “lots of heads up” for planning, Reed said.
Departments, through their academic college, can also apply to the provost’s office for additional funds to help offset replacement teaching costs.
The process identified disincentives on the faculty side, too. Covering expenses while abroad could be difficult, especially for those with families. A policy developed by Florida ensures that faculty members receive their full salary while overseas, in addition to the Fulbright award, and that they keep their benefits. Recipients can then use their Fulbright funds for research and other activities, Reed said.
Applications for the 2024-25 Fulbright U.S. Scholar program open this month, and there is an online informational session this afternoon, Wednesday, February 15, at 2 p.m. ET. You can register here, or check out the schedule of future webinars. More details about the awards are also on the Fulbright scholar website.
