May 19, 2009 by Minerva Baumann NMSU News Center
Three history professors and one business professor from New Mexico State University will be traveling to the Middle East, Europe and South America this summer teaching or conducting research as Fulbright Scholars. Nathan Brooks, Andrea Orzoff and Iñigo Garcia-Bryce, associate professors of history, and Phil Benson, a professor in the management department, recently were named 2009-2010 Fulbright Scholars.
“The Fulbright Scholar Program gives few awards each year relative to the large number of faculty members across the United States who are eligible to receive these awards,” said Jeffrey Brown, head of the history department. “Many departments of history receive no Fulbright awards in a given year. It is a great honor that the department of history at New Mexico State University has received three Fulbright awards for the year 2009-2010.”
Brooks will travel in June and July to Jordan and Oman to join a Fulbright group that will meet with journalists, government officials, educators, entrepreneurs and others to learn about these nations and their issues. Each participant will visit an archaeological site to learn more about the history of these nations and each will spend a day with a Jordanian or Omani family.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for me to expand my knowledge about the history and culture of the Middle East,” Brooks said. “I will use my experiences in this program to help design part of a new two-semester course in global history that will begin to be offered in the spring semester 2010.”
Brooks previously held a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad award when he conducted research for his Ph.D. in the Soviet Union.
Orzoff will travel to Berlin, Germany. She was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship to conduct research that will help her write her next book. She will be a visiting fellow at the Zentrum fuer Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam. Orzoff’s book will focus on the authors and journalists who made up the three German chapters of the International P.E.N. Club between 1947 and 1975, and their reinvention of German national identity.
“The Fulbright will allow me to get farther into my research for my second book, about German writers’ involvement in national and international politics during the Cold War,” Orzoff said. “It will help me continue to build bridges between Southern New Mexico and Central Europe and to help my students more fully understand their role as citizens of an increasingly interconnected world.”
Garcia-Bryce will be based in Lima, Peru and will conclude his research for a book on the history of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), one of Latin America’s most influential political parties, which began on a revolutionary path and then embraced democracy. It is currently in power in Peru.
His work will include archival research and oral histories in Lima, Trujillo and other Peruvian cities. He will teach an oral history course at the University of San Marcos in Lima. Students will examine topics in recent Peruvian history through direct interviews with participants.
“This honor is particularly significant to me as someone who grew up in two cultures and two countries: Peru and the United States,” Garcia-Bryce said. “I believe that my background gives me the opportunity to further the Fulbright’s most important mission: ‘to promote mutual understanding and respect between the United States and other nations.’ The Fulbright is a validation of the fact that my knowledge, experience and connections in Peru can be put to good use not only in furthering my own research but also in opening up new avenues of exchange between the two countries.”
Phil Benson, NMSU professor in the department of management, is one of four professors at New Mexico State University to receive a Fulbright award for 2009-2010.
Benson will be on a teaching fellowship at ISM University of Management and Economics, located in Lithuania. ISM was established as a western-style business school after the fall of the Soviet Union by BI Norwegian School of Management and has been recognized as a leading business school among European universities.
During his stay, Benson will teach in the doctoral program and the Masters of International Management degree program.
“I’ve enjoyed my work with the emerging economies from the former Soviet Union during the last few years,” Benson said. “The people, especially the young people, are so palpably excited over the chance to learn how this ‘new’ economy works. Of course, at present they’re also learning about the downside risk of a free market economy, which is always part of the system.”
This is Benson’s second Fulbright scholarship; in 2003 he was a visiting Fulbright Scholar at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco.
The Fulbright program was created by the United States government in 1946 to aid international educational exchange. The main funding for the program is received from the U.S. Congress, while participating governments and host universities contribute indirectly.
