A Shippensburg University student and a university faculty member were selected to receive Fulbright Scholar awards to travel abroad during the 2014-2015 academic year.
Dr. Kurt Kraus, professor and chair of counseling and college student personnel, and senior Ethan Goldbach were recently notified of the awards. Kraus received a Fulbright Study/Research Grant and Goldbach received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Program (ETA) award.
The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program and is designed to increase mutual understanding between U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries. According to information from the Fulbright website, the Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide allowing the recipients to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Kraus will travel to Bhutan to teach and consult at the Royal University of Bhutan and work with the Ministries of Health and Education. He will teach counseling content – theory, process and delivery – adapted to honor Bhutan’s culture and values and to make it unique to that culture.
“My goal is to teach in a variety of venues and with multiple methods, from university classrooms to community centers, from formal courses to workshops constructed in collaboration with Bhutan’s leaders to support the development of Bhutanese counseling,” said Kraus.
Goldbach will go to Malaysia where he will spend 10 months as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA). The program begins with a mandatory orientation in January 2015 when he will be given basic training in the Malay language.
Goldbach, of Greencastle, is a double major in history and international studies with an Asian studies concentration, and a double minor in anthropology and music. A member of the university’s Honors Program, he is studying abroad in his final semester at Soonchunhyang University in Korea before returning to Shippensburg to graduate in August.
According to the Fulbright website, ETAs will be in primary and secondary schools primarily in small towns and rural areas in the states of Terengganu, Pahang, Perak and Johor. They will spend 15 to 20 hours per week in the classroom assisting English teachers and leading English activities, with an additional five to 10 hours participating in or leading school-related activities, clubs, teams.
