This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

EMU Wins U.S. Competition for Fulbrighters

Fulbright Scholars with president Swartzendruber
Photo by Jim Bishop

EMU has been named the winner of a refereed competition among U.S. universities to host the Fulbright Conflict Resolution Program for this year and the next two years.

In a ceremony held Sept. 3 to celebrate the award, EMU president Loren E. Swartzendruber welcomed 14 Fulbright scholarship recipients to EMU’s masters’ program in peace studies. The students represent 11 countries: Morocco, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan and Syria.

Of the 14 Fulbrighters in EMU’s Conflict Transformation Program (CTP), nine form a special cohort from the Middle East, for which EMU is receiving a $500,000 grant.

John Sedlins, representing the U.S. State Department, sponsor of the Fulbright Program, sent a letter to the ceremony that included these remarks: "Eastern Mennonite submitted an outstanding proposal, which an independent Department review panel selected as the best in the competition.

"It is clear that Eastern Mennonite University is committed to making this an exceptional academic program that will be of enormous practical benefit to participants upon their return home," Sedlins' statement said.

The Fulbright scholarship is one of the most coveted in the world, providing scholarship recipients with the cost of transportation to and from the country where study will take place, full tuition, room and board and living expenses.

The long-term purpose of the Fulbright program is to provide people of various countries the opportunity to address long-term issues worldwide while increasing their mutual understanding, according to Sedlins.

The incoming Fulbrighters are joining 35 other masters students from the United States and a dozen other countries. Since opening its doors in 1994, CTP has trained more than 1,500 peacebuilders from 83 countries, noted Ruth H. Zimmerman, CTP co-director.

Four years ago, Fulbright sent its first cohort - a group of Middle Eastern students - to EMU on a pilot basis. After successfully serving as a pilot program, EMU has now won the first nationwide competition to be an official site for an ongoing program in peace studies.

A Fulbrighter who came to EMU during the pilot phase, Yasodha Shrestha from Nepal, told guests at the ceremony that EMU’s Conflict Transformation Program had ushered her into "a process of self-transformation... It has been an exacting, enriching, challenging experience that takes theoretical principles and applies them in practical ways to dealing with conflict."

In every year since 2000, the Fulbright group at EMU has included students who come from opposite sides of a national or ethnic conflict, such as students in the same class from Palestine and Israel or from Pakistan and India.

"We relish having students who must overcome cultural and political barriers to dialogue with each other," said Zimmerman following the ceremony. "We believe that peace begins in our hearts and with our relationships with others."

Though the Fulbright Program was founded 57 years ago, the Fulbright Conflict Resolution Program is relatively new, having begun with the pilot program at EMU. It was created "to enhance non-governmental efforts to resolve political, social and sectarian conflicts in the Middle East," Sedlins’ statement noted.

More information on the Fulbright program is available at: www.exchanges.state.gov/education/fulbright.

More information about EMU’s Conflict Transformation Program can be found at: www.emu.edu/ctp.

— article by: Jim Bishop; posted September 8, 2004