Three KU faculty members win Fulbright grants to teach, conduct research abroad
Debra Hedden
John Janzen
Burdett Loomis
LAWRENCE — Three University of Kansas faculty members have received Fulbright grants for teaching or research abroad for the 2012-13 academic year. They join the ranks of the 297 KU faculty who have received Fulbright grants since the program's inception.
Debra Hedden, associate professor of music education and music therapy, School of Music, received a Fulbright Scholar grant to Lithuania, where she will be affiliated with the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences in Vilnius during fall 2012. Heddon will both teach classes in general music education at LUES and will act as a consultant for the development of a new music education curriculum at the undergraduate level. She will also research the pedagogies used in choral music instruction in elementary school and of teaching improvisation on a variety of instruments at LUES with the view to incorporating these practices in to her own teaching at KU to future music educators at KU.
John Janzen, professor of anthropology, has received a Fulbright Senior Research grant to Democratic Republic of Congo. From January to April 2012, he will be affiliated with the Free University of Luozi, where he will give guest lectures on "social production and reproduction of health." Janzen will study formal and informal contributions to health and health care through typically anthropological methods: focused participant observation, archival research, interviews with officials, biomedical, public health and traditional practitioners, and a sampling of local residents. The study is a followup to earlier research Janzen conducted on health and healing in this region and across Central Africa, and it will be incorporated in his next book.
Burdett Loomis, professor of political science, was named the Fulbright Chair in American Politics at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, from January to June 2013. Loomis will focus his research on Australian interest groups and lobbying. As an expert on American politics, he is especially interested to learn how American techniques are or are not used or modified in Australia's parliamentary system. He will also explore the evolution of social conservative politics in Australia with a view toward a co-authored, comparative study of this phenomenon in the U.S., Britain and Australia.
The Fulbright Program is designed to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries." It was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The program is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington. The office of International Programs at KU coordinates all the different Fulbright programs, including the Fulbright Scholar program.