Scholars share foreign experiences
By James Ritchie
Senior Staff Writer
Six UK faculty members who studied and taught as Fulbright Scholars shared their experiences of studying and teaching in Greece, Finland, China, Russia, Kazakstan and Romania yesterday in the Student Center.Fulbright Scholars receive federal grants to spend a year conducting research and teaching in foreign countries.President Charles T. Wethington and Chancellor Elisabeth Zinser were on hand to introduce and commend the scholars.
Vasilios Evangelou received a Fulbright grant to study in Greece in 1995.
The experience at Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki was rewarding for Evangelou, an agronomy professor who was born in Greece.
"I felt it was quite a successful trip," he said.
The professor's research centered on the potential of Greek soils to irreversibly bind ammonium, a plant fertilizer.
College in Greece might not be completely different from life at UK. Evangelou showed a picture of a sidewalk at the university where he worked.
Parked cars covered virtually every inch of the concrete.
Tight parking was the least of Michael Impey's worries during his third Fulbright experience. The professor of Spanish and Italian, travelled to Bucharest, Romania last year to continue his research in Romanian literature.
Impey said Bucharest currently resembles Naples or Nagasaki after World War II, with the blind, beggars and cripples lining the streets.
"I would not suggest Bucharest for other faculty members considering applying for Fulbrights," Impey said. "In six months I lived ten years."
Impey had an advantage because he spoke the language and was married to a Romanian. He described his trip as "intensive, fruitful and productive."
His research interests included studying letters from prisons and the re-evaluation of the novel in Communist Romania.
Robert Lorch, a professor of psychology, travelled to the University of Turku in Finland last year to examine the cognitive process underlying reading comprehension.
Lorch said the best parts of his Fulbright were his interactions with other people. The actual research was "icing on the cake."
Carol Buhrmann taught architecture at the Ural Academy of Architecture and Arts in Ekaterinburg, Russia during her Fulbright earlier this year. Buhrmann is an assistant professor of architecture.
At the same time, Alan DeYoung was studying school reform in Kazakstan. DeYoung is a professor of educational policy studies.
John Rogers spent much of 1994 and 1995 in China teaching law to graduate students at Zhongsham University in Guangzhou. Rogers is a professor of law.
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