Abstract
Senator J. William Fulbright introduced the Fulbright program in 1945 through a bill presented to the U.S. Congress to fund international good will through exchange of scholars and students in the fields of education, culture, business, public service, arts, and science. The bill was signed into law in 1946. The Fulbright program is led by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The Fulbright U.S. program has many international opportunities available to scholars and students through their websites www.cies.org and https://us.fulbrightonline.org. I am writing this editorial as alumni Fulbright Ambassador to Sydney Australia in January to May 2017. During my Fulbright, I was a Visiting Professor at Macquarie University in Sydney and worked in the Australian Institute of Health Innovation. My experiences during my Fulbright have forever re-shaped my perspectives of environments, international issues, and cultures within Australia and beyond.
There are many benefits of being a U.S. Fulbright Ambassador to a faraway country. For example, before I lived in Australia, I did not know the answer to the following question: What do the Gray-Headed Flying Fox Bat, Wombat, Koala, and Dingo have in common? During my Australian visit, I learned many things about these species. I will share a couple of things. First, they are all unique animal species of Australia. Second, the Gray-Headed Flying Fox Bat is a nocturnal “megabat” averaging 3 feet in width from wing tip to wing tip and has a diet of mainly pollen, nectar, and fruit. This species is unique in that it has the head and body of a fox, and the wings of a bat. My first encounter with this species occurred during a nighttime stroll along a street in Sydney when one of the bats flew above my head. At that first encounter, I did not know these megabats ate mostly pollen, nectar, and fruit. You can imagine the rest.
Living in another country, even for short 4-month duration like my Fulbright, enables a person to experience the environment of the country up close and personal. For instance, my research activities during the Fulbright included interviewing residential aged care administrators and conducting a survey about the use of health information systems in New South Wales, Australia, one of six territories in Australia. In a series of fortunate events, I was interviewed for a publication written by an editor of Australian Ageing Agenda, an aged care services magazine in partnership with the Australian Association of Gerontology. During the interview and subsequent publication, I was able to describe my research activities and goals. I used the publication to leverage my recruitment contacts for the research study. As a result, I was invited to visit and meet with more than 50 residential aged care administrators and their staff in facilities from four of the six Australian territories including Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. I remember one facility in particular which was opening a new building for older adults. I was invited to attend a dedication ceremony being organized by the new facilities staff. The formal ceremony opened with a dedication to the ancestors who had protected the land over many years including indigenous aboriginal Australian groups. An elementary school choir sang original Australian songs. Near the end of the ceremony, a message was delivered by the Minister of Aging about the importance of community to all citizens of Australia. Finally, all the participants and some facility residents mingled and took tours of the newly dedicated facility which included some very sophisticated technologies used to monitor residents who were living in the facility.
Remaining in a country for an extended period of time on a Fulbright also enables a person to get up close and personal with relevant issues that are impacting the country and the United States. Some issues will not be as apparent to someone who does not live in the same countries. As part of the Fulbright experience, Fulbrighters are encouraged and supported by the organization to attend a Fulbright Orientation Program and a Presentation Dinner. During my Fulbright, this event was held in the Australian Capital Territory, the Federal Capital. The event was held to honor, present, and profile the year’s Australian and American Fulbright Scholars. There was a divergence of issues presented by the scholars. For example, one scholar was conducting foreign policy analysis on the national action plan on women, peace, and security; another postgraduate scholar was conducting environmental science and biology research with Aboriginal rangers who are learning to manage an invasive tree species from Florida called the pond apple that devastates wetland habitats. The diversity of problems which are being addressed provides a unique perspective of the country in which the Fulbrighter is residing, in this case Australia.
The Fulbright experience provides scholars and students a mechanism to explore and build international relationships anywhere in the world. The selected experience can have either a teaching or research focus or both, depending on the region traveled to and the international contacts supporting the Fulbright. My Fulbright was purely research. I had made contacts with scholars in Australia who were conducting similar research, as I was stateside. These contacts were invaluable as I organized my letters of support and began to contemplate the research project I would conduct while in Australia. In my research preparation, I had to acquire Institutional Review Board approval from two Universities including the Macquarie University where I conducted most of the work and also from the University in the Midwestern United States where I normally reside. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, human subject projections in research are important to both countries although the process for acquiring approval was slightly different on each university campus.
Outcomes of the Fulbright have exceeded my expectations. During the Fulbright, I worked with two other postacute care experts on a book released in July 2018 titled An Introduction to Health Information Technology in LTPAC Settings. The book includes an international chapter that includes some descriptions of findings from the Australian residential aged care interviews. I have several peer reviewed journal publications in review illustrating the research results discovered during the Fulbright. I gave four presentations about research innovations in older adult housing, as part of a Fulbright extension that I received titled the New Zealand Aged Care Lecture Series. After returning home, I have also served as a Fulbright Ambassador giving short lectures about my experience and details of research outcomes at various sites here in the United States. I continue to serve the Fulbright organization by conducting regional peer reviews of grants for future Fulbrighters. I also accepted my first Fulbright PhD student who is visiting the United States; she is from Ghana.
These outcomes and experiences have provided a great deal of personal and professional satisfaction for me. After my Fulbright was completed, I met dozens of Fulbright Alumni as part of an international network of scholars and students who had achieved great outcomes building international collaborations in research and teaching. Building international collaborations is a great way to explore similarities and differences of environments, international issues, and cultures of our world. The Fulbright organization provides a mechanism to access these opportunities. I highly recommend this mechanism for scholars and students interested in building international relations.