UW College of Education Professor Receives Second Fulbright Award

University of Wyoming College of Education Associate Professor Amy Roberts recently earned her second Fulbright Award to teach and conduct research in Myanmar, Southeast Asia.

She received a Fulbright Core Research/Teaching Scholarship to teach two courses on qualitative research at Mandalay University in Mandalay, Myanmar, and to help develop a framework for graduate program dissertation research.

Roberts’ Fulbright research will involve interdisciplinary and cross-campus collaborations to examine the role of education in civic responsibility and citizenship, on both global and local platforms. In addition, Roberts will offer seminars, workshops and guest lectures across Myanmar on areas contributing to educational reform underway in the Myanmar higher education system.

The Fulbright Award will begin in early December 2017 and continue through summer 2018.

Engaging in international collaborative projects with students and colleagues is a high priority for Roberts’ work on the UW campus and abroad. She currently serves as the faculty adviser for the College of Education World Language Center and the Central Asian Student Association.

For more than 10 years, Roberts directed an annual UW four-week study-abroad course in Costa Rica that included intensive service teaching in rural schools and field research. In 2003, Roberts was awarded a Fulbright-Hays grant that provided funding for 20 Wyoming teachers to participate in the study-abroad course.

The upcoming Fulbright Award further extends Roberts’ sabbatical work as a U.S. Department of State fellow placed at Mandalay University in Myanmar.

“The needs of Myanmar higher education range from physical infrastructure and information technology, to the academic curriculum, support for faculty and student research and international engagement,” she says. Based on her fellowship experience, Roberts reports a high level of enthusiasm for addressing Myanmar’s pressing needs in higher education among administrators, faculty and students.

As a first-time Fulbright scholar in 2008 at the National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, Roberts taught a doctoral research course exploring the entity of higher education, as both mediator and reactor to contemporary processes of globalization. Collectively, students and Roberts conducted research based on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods addressing the impact of the internationalization of East Asian universities.

Roberts says she is honored to be the recipient of Fulbright Awards and a Department of State fellowship. She embraces the Fulbright Program as the flagship of international educational exchanges sponsored by the U.S. government, designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

In response, Roberts intends to establish a Myanmar presence in the World Language Center to welcome Myanmar guests, students and academics to the UW community; promote the exchange of UW faculty for joint teaching and research opportunities in the Myanmar system; provide presentations to Wyoming groups, organizations and university classes detailing concrete experiences in Myanmar, as well as lectures to disseminate her Fulbright-sponsored research; and sustain ongoing collaboration with Myanmar colleagues.

The UW International Programs Office advises UW faculty members interested in pursuing the research or teaching options within the Fulbright Scholar Program. Mary Katherine Scott, acting director of the International Programs Office, and Shawn Bunning, project coordinator, are official Fulbright advisers.

“The Fulbright Scholar Program is an internationally prestigious opportunity for UW faculty members,” Scott says. “In addition to her research and teaching roles, Dr. Roberts will serve as a cultural ambassador for our institution, our state and our nation. She is an ideal representative of this award.”

For more information about the Fulbright Scholar Program, visit www.cies.org, or, to set up an advising appointment, call the UW International Programs Office at (307) 766-3677.