Dr. Christina Standerfer, associate professor at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the University Marin Barleti in Tirana, Albania during the 2012-2013 academic year.
Standerfer will be teaching political communication and advocacy with an emphasis on effective campaign strategies, message design and the role of civil society in promoting healthy democracies.
Standerfer is one of roughly 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program this year, according to the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
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.
“I’m humbled and extremely excited about being selected to participate in the Fulbright Program,” Standerfer said. “This is a wonderful opportunity not only to share my ideas and passions with students in Albania, but also for my own professional development through my experience abroad. This is an experience that will profoundly impact my life and career.”
Standerfer is an associate professor of communication at the Clinton School, where she teaches the Communication Processes and Conflict Transformation core course. Her research centers on the rhetorical construction of civic engagement, public issues and public opinion – how citizenship and civic engagement become engaged in political talk.
Standerfer earned her Ph.D. in communication from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she served as director of service learning. She earned her B.A. in speech communication and an M.A. in interpersonal and organizational communication from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
About the Fulbright Program
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. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.
Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education, and athletics. Forty-three Fulbright alumni from 11 countries have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes. Prominent Fulbright alumni include Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director and Founder, Grameen Bank, and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient; John Atta Mills, President of Ghana; Lee Evans, Olympic Gold Medalist; Ruth Simmons, President, Brown University; Riccardo Giacconi, Physicist and 2002 Nobel Laureate; Amar Gopal Bose, Chairman and Founder, Bose Corporation; Renée Fleming, soprano; Jonathan Franzen, Writer; and Daniel Libeskind, Architect.
Fulbright recipients are among over 40,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than sixty years, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has funded and supported programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education.
For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit our website at http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange Programs, telephone 202-632-3241 or e-mail fulbright@state.gov.
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