Fulbright Visit Fulbrightonline.org
Fulbright Program for U.S. Students

Fulbright Program Adviser
Newsletter

Issue 10 | June 2007

FPA Update
table of contents

 Program Updates

Fulbright Program Adviser Development Initiative

by Kumasi Adoma

In April, the U.S. Student Fulbright program continued the Fulbright Program Adviser Development Initiative. The purpose of this two-day workshop is twofold: 1) to support new or formally inactive FPAs in the Fulbright process, 2) to introduce FPAs to the multitude of Fulbright and other programs offered at IIE in an effort to develop international activities on these campuses.  The U.S. Student Fulbright Program is continuously striving to diversify the types of applications it receives including, but not limited to, student type, academic major, field of study, type of institution etc.  The Development Initiative is a step toward this diversification goal.  

Back to Table of Contents
 

Connecting IIE/Fulbright Information to the User

by Everette Penn

There is always an excitement about traveling to New York.  When it is associated with promoting the advancement of international education and global understanding, the experience is raised by leaps and bounds. In April, I was invited to participate in the spring Fulbright Program Advisers Development Initiative and the event exceeded my expectations. The two-day program at the Institute of International Education allowed participants to meet and discuss issues of importance and concern with program directors as well as Fulbright representatives on campuses across the country.

Amiel Melnick in Slovenia, 2005-2006 
Evrette Penn, Fulbright Scholar to Egypt 2005. 

 As a Fulbright Scholar to Egypt in 2005, I remember thinking before I applied how daunting the application process appeared.  A significant portion of my apprehension and questions about applying stemmed from the lack of information rather than the lack of qualifications. I believe this is the dilemma faced by so many of our students. By having sessions such as the Fulbright Program Adviser Development Initiative, the gap between user and provider has been decreased. Upon my return the University of Houston- Clear Lake, I made a short IIE/Fulbright presentation to my "Egypt in Transition" course, which takes students to Egypt during the summer session. My hope is that the students' experience in Egypt combined with information about IIE/Fulbright programs will promote an increase in the number of successful applications from my institution.  

I thank the IIE Office for the opportunity to attend the session and the wealth of information that came from it. In keeping with the theme of connecting information with users, a luncheon is planned during the summer for study abroad directors at local colleges and universities in the Houston area. In conjunction with IIE's Southern Regional Center, the luncheon will inform the directors about the variety of IIE/Fulbright programs available to their students, as well as, strategies to increase success in the application process.  

Back to Table of Contents
 

The Tradition of Islamic Scholarship in Timbuktu: a photographic documentation

by Alexandra Huddleston, 2006-2007

In Timbuktu, a boy becomes a man when he is officially costumed in his first turban by the Sheikh of his mosque and blessed by the multitude of male friends and family who have gathered for this important ceremony.

Once he has received his first turban, he can marry whom he wishes without asking the permission of his parents.  He can participate as a man, among equals, at all civic and religious functions.  Accordingly, many men receive their first official turban the day after the religious rites celebrating their first marriage -- which has been duly arranged by the parents -- which is also the day before their first wedding night.

 
Timbuktu, Mali. April 2, 2007.  Friends and family members pose with four men – in the back row, hooded in tan and black – who have just officially received the first turban. 
The turban symbolizes manhood.  It is also an abstract representation of the name of god, Allah, as written in Arabic.  It is an essential piece of clothing in an environment where the heat of the sun reaches above 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and the night can drop to below 50.  Sandstorms will fill your eyes, ears and mouth with the desert…if you’re not appropriately gowned.

In early April, I photographed a ceremony in which four men were together invested with their first turban.  I began photographing from the outskirts of the event, since those without turbans (which ends up including all women) are not normally allowed in the main ceremonial area.  But rules often seem to bend for photographers, and soon I was invited to join the Malian photographers and videographers – all un-turbaned -- snapping away to inscribe the memory of this event for posterity.

What was the key that helped me break the turban-gender barrier?  It certainly helped that I was wearing a long-sleeved Malian styled blouse and that I had a scarf to cover my head.  It also helped that many in the crowd recognized me from around town and knew I was connected with some of the city’s more trusted and eminent citizens.  But, the welcome really opened when the guests were assured that I would be bringing back copies of the photos.

I’m certainly not the first to practice in this form of cross-cultural exchange.  As Fulbrighters we are called Cultural Ambassadors.  If I extend this analogy and say that I’m involved in a sort of diplomacy, what terminology would best describe it?  It’s certainly not the gunboat diplomacy that opened much of East Asia to American trade and influence in the 19th century… So, I’ve coined a new term.  As a Fulbright, Cultural Ambassador, I engage in photographic diplomacy.  It’s the camera that opens the doors and provides the excuse to watch and talk and learn and engage with a foreign culture.  Then, the photographs made will in turn bring that understanding back to my country and, hopefully, increase the perspective, patience and interest of Americans towards those who live very, very different lives from their own.



Back to Table of Contents