Fulbright U.S. Administrators in Germany Program

Accompanied by staff from the Fulbright Belgium office we took the metro to the Académie de Recherche et d’Enseignment Supérieur (or ARES) where we were given the broader European perspective on internationalization of higher education. A common theme is developing approaches to internationalize curricula and provide opportunities for students to increase their global awareness. Even if students don’t travel abroad working together with international students can provide very valuable experiences. This approach is what we are doing in Honors with our global leadership program where we partner our students with Honors students from Southeast University in Nanjing to work on a project that has a global impact. Through this Fulbright program I can see where we could develop similar projects with German universities.

In the afternoon, we traveled to Leuven by train. After a short walking tour that involved enjoying some delicious handmade Belgian chocolates we spent the rest of the afternoon at KU Leuven. This is one of Europe’s flagship universities and has a very nice Cougar connection. During World War I the original library at KU Leuven was destroyed by fire. After the war, the library was rebuilt with support from American universities. One of those institutions – whose name is carved into the stone pillars – was the State College of Washington (later to be our WSU!) – a great example of Cougs helping others. The picture is of the current library, which was repaired and expanded after further damage during World War II.

Our Fulbright group was invited to join a special decade anniversary celebration of KU Leuven’s doctoral programs: Looking Back to the Future. Three of the presentations were from students that had received their PhDs within the past five years. All of them said that they had not been adequately prepared for life beyond graduate school and certainly not for careers outside academia. Hearing the perspectives of these students made me appreciate what our GPSA is doing for our students in terms of professional and personal development. Go Cougs!