UW Professor Awarded Fulbright Senior Grant to Conduct Research in Taiwan

Nov. 29, 2007 -- University of Wyoming Professor Amy Roberts has been awarded a Fulbright Senior grant to lecture and conduct research in Taiwan this academic year.

Fulbright Scholars are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and demonstrated leadership in their fields. Roberts, an associate professor in the UW College of Education and adjunct professor in the International Studies Program, is among approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals studying in more than 150 countries through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Among them is Conrad Smith, professor in the UW Department of Communication and Journalism, who is teaching U.S. media theory at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

Roberts teaches about debating processes of globalization in the doctoral program at National Cheng-Chi University’s College of Education in Taipei. She also teaches English as a foreign language in the school’s undergraduate program.

Additionally, Roberts is conducting an international comparative study of the broad structural impacts of globalization on the Taiwanese higher education system. The underlying thesis is that the mechanisms of globalization and the increasing interconnectedness of societies pose common dilemmas for educational systems worldwide.

“School environments of all nations are enmeshed both directly and indirectly with a range of transnational issues, problems and dilemmas,” Roberts says. “These phenomena relate to the governance, financing, and provision of mass education and to issues of equality of educational opportunities and outcomes for differently-situated social groups.”

Roberts will travel to Vietnam, southern Taiwan and Thailand in December, January and April, to present workshops defined by her research.

This is Roberts’ second grant through the Fulbright program. In 2003 she received a Fulbright-Hays award to expand a UW study abroad course in Costa Rica. She led 20 classroom teachers to Costa Rica to develop content-based foreign language curriculum units to support Wyoming’s foreign language standards.

Roberts’ daughter, UW student Jahna Locke, accompanied her to Taiwan with support of an International Studies Program Freeman-Asia scholarship to study Mandarin in Taipei.

After competing the Fulbright grant next June, Roberts will study at China’s Beijing Language and Culture University before completing a six-week EFL service teaching assignment in Chengrai, Thailand. She will resume her UW responsibilities next fall.

Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program builds mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
For more information, e-mail Roberts at aroberts@uwyo.edu.

Posted on Thursday, November 29, 2007