How to Write a Successful Fulbright Proposal

So you want to be a Fulbrighter? If you have the aptitude, skill set and academic background that’s one thing.  But the art of the application is an entirely different beast.  Over the past year, and especially within the last month, I’ve had tons of people contact me asking me for advice regarding how to write a successful Fulbright Grant Proposal.  Since I’ve received two Fulbrights and as a Fulbright Alumna I’m now a proposal evaluator I figured I might as well share my knowledge with the world, and put that information online in hopes of helping aspiring applicants.  Let’s get started.

You may have heard of Fulbright before, or have been totally unfamiliar with it until you ran across my blog.  In a nutshell, the Fulbright Commission is part of the U.S. State Department which provides funding to students and faculty members to conduct research and teach (for professors).  If you would like to learn more about Fulbright please visit this website: www.iie.org/fulbright.

If you would like to consider applying to Fulbright here are a few easy steps to help you along with the process:

1. Identify the country and a specific university to be your host institution.  If the country/university doesn’t have a need for someone in your field then find another option.  For instance, since I am a Tourism professor I searched for universities interested in having a Tourism person.  There were three options: Thailand, Ethiopia and Botswana.  I decided I wanted to go to Botswana, but I did list other alternatives in case Botswana didn’t work out.  Many other Fulbrighters I have known did NOT get their first choice location, so it was a good thing they listed other alternatives. (P.S.- Every time I pass through Ethiopia I am SO THANKFUL I chose Botswana!) 
2. Write your project proposal and tailor it to the needs of the country/university.  This is where you have to revert back to thinking like a high schooler who wants to get into their first choice college.  You have to set yourself apart from the competition and demonstrate why you are the best person to be a Fulbrighter for that institution/location.  For me this was easy.  Botswana has the most wildlife in all of Africa.  The country is trying to take advantage of this resource by promoting tourism, but thus far tourism numbers in Botswana pale in comparison to most other more established African tourism destinations (Kenya, South Africa, etc).  I created a project centered around how to increase tourism revenue while protecting the natural resources of the area. 
3. Once you have formulated your proposal get your hopeful host institution to support it.  I will explain the Fulbright evaluation process and timeline a little later, but for now it is important to note that it is a MAJOR advantage to have the institution behind you.  Fulbright generally requests a letter of support/letter of invitation from someone at the university which says something along the lines of, “We’ve read Dr. Phelan’s proposal and believe her expertise is in line with what our department is trying to accomplish.  We believe she will make a significant contribution if granted a Fulbright and SHE IS AWESOME! WE WANT HER!”  (This is my interpretation, not what was actually written; but you get the drift.)  For students it is IMPERATIVE to have a letter from a faculty member at the host institution write a letter committing to mentor you in your studies.  Fulbright does not like lost children wandering around without someone to mother them (academically). 
4. Start your application early.  Keep in mind the majority of Fulbright host institutions are in Third World countries.  It may take weeks to get a response from someone at the host institution to respond to your email and say they want to host you.  Then you have to get a letter of support.  This is not the U.S. and hey, if you want somewhere as efficient as the U.S. then don’t bother going abroad.  Many of these countries have electricity problems, or the campus has ZERO technology, so a professor may only check his email once a month (true story).  You need to give yourself 2-3 months to communicate with the host institution to get their commitment and the necessary documentation. 
5. Get recommendation letters.  I wouldn’t say that recommendation letters make or break you, but they do count.  Fulbright wants to know you can hack it, so this is where your referees can really help.  You need three letters and I suggest asking each person to focus on something a little different.  My department chair talked about me working with lots of international students and the research I had conducted in Africa previously.  My dissertation chair (who is also a mentor and friend) talked about me from a more personal standpoint and the fact that I am flexible, can adjust to uncertain and uncomfortable situations well, and am good at understanding people regardless of their background.  I don’t know what my Associate Dean said, but I knew she would say something positive because she’s always been a huge supporter of me.  She is also one of my most dedicated blog readers- Hi Dr. H! Can’t wait to see you again in a few weeks! :) 
6. Submit your application on time- or better yet- early.  In fact, make sure you start the online application itself at least a week or two early because there is so much information you need to provide and you may have to hunt for it.  If you have dependents you have to provide all their info as well (birthdates, passport numbers, SS#s) and you may not have that memorized.  In order to make sure you aren’t waking up your spouse in the middle of the night because the application is DUE IN TWO HOURS!!!, start early. 
7. Once you hit submit try to forget about it.  If you succeed in doing this tell me how.  My thoughts were consumed with “I wonder if I got the Fulbright?” every day for 9 months.

I realize this blog post is already incredibly long, but I also remember how desperate I was to find any candid information when I was preparing my Fulbright app, so I am going to go on a little longer and explain how the evaluation of a Fulbright proposal occurs.  You will submit your Fulbright application in July.  (This date may be different for students.) The Fulbright staffers ensure your application has everything necessary before they send it to the first round of reviews.

1. September: First your application is reviewed by former Fulbrighters.  These Fulbrighters aren’t necessarily 100% in your field.  For instance, I’ve reviewed applications for History, Political Science and a couple other areas.  This review is basically to make sure your application is realistic and feasible.  For instance, I received a student proposal and the student listed several different schools (which were all over the board- the equivalent of Yale and Prince George’s Community College) he wanted to consider going to, he never mentioned who he would work with, and there was no letter of invitation from any host institution.  This told me he hadn’t put in enough effort and was very unfocused.  I did not recommend advancing him to the next round. 
2. November: Your application is reviewed by people in your field.  Now, if your field is new to Fulbright these people may not even necessarily be from Fulbright.  For instance, my field of Tourism has only been hosted by Fulbright a short while, so some of my second round reviewers may not have completed a Fulbright before.  Your subject area experts are evaluating your project to determine whether your data collection methods make sense, if you can complete what you want to accomplish in the timeframe proposed and whether you actually contribute anything meaningful to academic literature.  My graduate students constantly hear me ask them, “So what?” when they want to conduct a new research project.  If you haven’t explained in your application why anyone would care about what you are studying it is unlikely you will get selected. 
3. January: Your host institution evaluates the applications and ranks their selections.  UB had 8 subject areas (Tourism, Medicine, Education, Natural Resources, etc) for Fulbrighters.  This means if you are Theater Arts and the host institution doesn’t list Theater Arts as a desired subject area you might as well look elsewhere.  Even though UB had 8 subject areas listed, they knew they would only get 2, maybe 3 Fulbrighters at most.  The host institution reads the applications sent to them, decides which they do not want, and then ranks the individuals they do want.  UB ranked 10 people this year.  They only got 2.  When I turned down my second Fulbright that meant person number 3 was given an award. 
4. March-May: Fulbright sends out notifications.  I found out on March 18^th of last year that I got the Fulbright.  This year I did not receive notification until May.  (For the record, I was ranked number 1 this year, so it wasn’t like they didn’t want me. There was some turnover in the Africa Regional Office and they were simply operating on a slower timeline this year.)

For anyone applying for the Fulbright I understand how difficult it is to be patient- been there, done that! But once you get awarded a Fulbright time starts to move at the speed of light.  I had roughly 100 days last year to pack up my office, my house, put things in storage, arrange for people to cover my classes, decide what to do with my graduate students, pack for Africa, get all my vaccinations, shots and other medications, make the rounds visiting family and friends, update my will, and mostly importantly promise my mother I would take her to Walt Disney World when I returned.  Thank goodness I didn’t stay a second year, I can’t even imagine what I would have promised her for another year away from home.

If you have stayed with me this long today, thank you!  If you are an aspiring Fulbrighter, good luck!  And if you make the cut and get to spend some time overseas, congratulations!  I hope you take full advantage of your good fortune and have the time of your life.  I certainly did.

Quality Assurance

One of the best things about being a professor is encompassed in the phrase “academic freedom.” For anyone reading this who isn’t a professor or graduate student, academic freedom means that academics are permitted to research and teach without any significant limitations. As long as the professor teaches the objectives in the course he can use whatever methods (ethically and within reason of course) to do so. That’s why if four different professors teach the same course, they can get away with using completely different assignments, tests and grading methods.

Due to the academic freedom mantra, this means many professors often have little if any idea as to what their colleagues are teaching or how they are doing it. Since I am the Associate Department Chair I see the syllabi from my faculty and may sit in on classes from time to time, but if I wasn’t an administrator I wouldn’t be given that kind of access.

Here at the University of Botswana academic freedom exists and is readily championed, but there is a second belief system which is just as prevalent, if not more so: “quality assurance.” When I first learned about quality assurance back in July I was really excited by the prospect. I was told that all the faculty in the department would get together several times before and during the semester to give input on one another’s classes. Hearing this, I was jealous as I wish I had this kind of input back home. I’ve tried at other times in several institutions to encourage professors to include particular concepts in their classes to better prepare students for future coursework (i.e my classes). However, each time I’ve requested someone to include an extra topic I’ve been met with pushback: “I don’t have time.” “That’s not in my syllabus.” “I don’t know anything about that topic.” I’ve even offered to go into someone else’s class and teach a certain module and still haven’t received a welcoming response. So when I heard about quality assurance here I was gung-ho, until of course I entered my first quality assurance meeting.

My first quality assurance meeting was back in July. The six professors and lecturers in the Tourism & Hospitality Management department met to examine one another’s course syllabi. I quickly realized my idea of quality assurance was worlds apart from the accepted standard. Rather than providing suggestions for topics to include in the course or feedback on assessment rubrics, it was a communal proofreading session. The better part of an hour was spent on one particular syllabus debating whether the comma went before or after the word "and." I cannot tell you whether a consensus was ever reached as I eventually became so disenchanted with the whole situation I tuned out and when asked for an opinion I conceded, “Sounds good to me.” At that point I was so worn down they could have been asking me if I was in favor of drowning puppies for fun and I would have agreed.

Recently we had another quality assurance meeting. Apparently I did not learn my lesson the first time, and entered this meeting bright eyed and bushy tailed only to have the wind quickly sucked out of my sails yet again. The agenda called for everyone to have their final exams written so that they could be reviewed by the group. Expecting to receive recommendations about the rigor or wording of questions I immediately realized this was another exercise in editing. My graduate students readily brag/commiserate/dread my love of the English language and resulting tendency towards Nazi-esque editing. As such, the only issue with my final exam was the fact I wrote November 2013 Examination Period on the exam cover sheet instead of November/December 2013 Examination Period. Sadly, not everyone’s final was as straightforward. Ms. Comma from the July quality assurance meeting had several dozen grammatical errors which took a good chunk of time during the meeting. But the real impasse came when the group could not decide whether Ms. Comma’s exam should utilize bullet points or alphabetic sub-questions.

While I think quality assurance is a great idea and I wish universities would utilize this practice to actually improve their courses, I’m disappointed the concept isn’t better applied here. While I am here at UB I will gladly contribute what I can to assuring quality by providing my editorial expertise, but since I likely won’t be able to institute a quality assurance component back home I will be satisfied with my academic freedom.

Made in South Africa?: A Trip to the Farm

Here at UB I am in the Faculty of Business (or College of Business).  Aside from Tourism and Hospitality (THM), the other departments in my Faculty include Marketing, Management and Accounting & Finance.  We also offer an MBA as well as a Ph.D. in Global Entrepreneurship. A significant part of my job here is to develop the curriculum for a Masters in Tourism and Hospitality Management.  In theory that shouldn’t be particularly difficult since I already spend a lot of time with graduate education back in Texas.  But there are two challenges associated with this task.

First of all, THM has a heavy focus on natural resources, environmental preservation and wildlife.  For instance, we offer a course called Safari & Camp Management.  I sit in on a lot of courses taught by other professors in my department because tourism here is unlike anywhere else, so this gives me the opportunity to learn.  Yesterday’s Safari & Camp Management lecture dealt entirely with elephant watering, safety, and precautions.  Perhaps I should write another blog post about that class because it was truly fascinating!  You could NEVER imagine what you need to know about keeping the guests in your camp safe from elephants. Hint: Don’t have a swimming pool, because elephants will be attracted to the water and show up in camp to drink it.

The other major difference between the course of study here and in my previous HTM departments is the focus on entrepreneurship.  The Ph.D. program here is called Global Entrepreneurship, but it really focuses on entrepreneurship here in Botswana.  There are a lot of government initiatives here to encourage local ownership and management.  Due to the high price point of the tourism operations here, most are owned, or at least heavily invested in, by foreigners.  Attempts are being made to shift away from foreign investment and ownership to Batswana-run businesses, hence the Global Entrepreneurship Ph.D.

A few days ago the doctoral students went on a field trip to one of the government-subsidized entrepreneurship ventures.  I decided to tag along.  We went to a farm just north of town. As you can see here there were lots of greenhouses:

Currently the farm is growing tomatoes and collard greens:

The visit lasted about two hours and was quite interesting.  However, while our host was telling us about the tomato production I began wandering around and looking at things on my own.  I stumbled across a giant pile of bags on a table.  The bags were plastic and said “Tomatoes” on the front.  As I picked up the bag our host told the group, “Oh yes, this is where we bag the tomatoes…” and began an explanation of that process.  I turned over the bag and printed on the back was the statement, “Product of South Africa.” I was shocked.  This was an outrage!  False advertising!  Leading the consumer astray!  If it is a local product people need to know this!  WHY WOULD YOU EVER PUT BOTSWANA TOMATOES IN A BAG THAT SAYS ‘PRODUCT OF SOUTH AFRICA!’??!!

Alas, my curiosity got the best of me and I asked our guide.  His response, “Well, of course it is a product of South Africa.  The plastic bag was manufactured there.”

Yes, of course. I suppose in that case we really are talking about Global Entrepreneurship.

Related, relevant, and, or...

My department is looking to hire a Lecturer.  A Lecturer position is similar to an Assistant Professor position in the U.S. The person is expected to teach, conduct research and carry out service responsibilities.  However, I learned in a faculty meeting this morning that the hiring process is quite different here.

In the U.S. we don’t hire faculty members sight unseen.  Typically, a faculty candidate will travel to the university for a 2-3 day interview, during which time he will teach a class, do a research presentation and meet with all the faculty and dean.  Here there are no campus interviews.  They don’t even do phone interviews!  Bear in mind this is for a full time position, so if this person is hired he will stay on faculty full time, forever.  Thus, it is important not to hire the wrong person.

Rather than ever speaking to job applicants the hiring decision is made based on a spreadsheet containing information about each person’s qualifications.  We are expected to look at the information and determine, based on the job posting, whether each applicant is “appointable.”  “Appointable” means the person meets the required qualifications and is eligible for hire.  If ANYONE on the list of candidates is appointable, then someone must be hired. Thus, even if we know we don’t like a person, but that person is appointable, we are expected to hire that individual.

Ok, now that you have the background information, we had five applicants for the Lecturer job.  Three were “not appointable” because they either didn’t have a graduate degree already or were missing some other major requirement.  So these three were straightforward.  However, the other two were mediocre.  We didn’t really like them and didn’t want to hire them, but they were decent.  However, the department chair insisted we make a ruling on them.  And he kept reminding us that if one of them was deemed apointable that we would have to hire that person.  Apparently he must go before a university-wide board explaining the department’s decision as to who was appointable, who wasn’t, why the decision was made, and other seemingly bizarre questions.

As I was saying, we didn’t like the two candidates who appeared to be qualified.  Both candidates had graduate degrees in Environmental Sciences, not Tourism, which was our preference.  We referred back to the job posting which stated, “Applicants MUST have: a Master’s Degree in Tourism or RELATED fields, Bachelor’s Degree in the RELEVANT discipline, show evidence of engagement of research AND service.” For clarification, I added the capitalizations and bolding.

We spent no less than an hour discussing whether Environmental Sciences was a RELATED field or RELEVANT.  Finally, we came to the agreement that it was related, but not relevant enough to qualify the person to teach Tourism courses.  (Yes, you would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in this meeting!) However, we still needed to address the last part of the sentence: whether the person demonstrated “evidence of research AND service.”  I immediately pointed out neither candidate had research experience.  To which someone else replied, “Yes, both they both have service.”  Naturally I took my observation of the RELATED versus RELEVANT argument and used it to my benefit, “Yes, but the advertisement states ‘evidence of research AND service.’ It doesn’t say research OR service.  Since neither have both research AND service they both fail to meet the requirements.  I vote they are both unappointable!”

In the end we decided neither candidate met the requirements and elected not to hire anyone.  It only took 2 hours and 38 minutes to reach that conclusion.  I have to admit, after the first hour of this meeting I think I had a smile plastered on my face permanently because it was all I could do not to laugh.  I just thought the entire debate about the EXACT meaning of words was ridiculous.  But apparently when you are told to “choose your words carefully” you should really make an effort to do so because you never know when you are going to have to defend them in a fight to the death.  I believe from now on I will have to carry a dictionary wherever I go, just in case.

Mine, mine, mine

Monday morning I arrived on campus at the Faculty of Business, where the Tourism Department is housed, to meet my new department chair.  Here he is called the HOD (Head of Department).  Since I had already been on campus for a few days I was anxious to meet him and hit the ground running.  I wanted to find out what he wanted me to teach, my teaching schedule, get my office, etc.  My enthusiasm was quickly met with unparalleled anxiety when I was informed there was a turf war going on (my words, not his- he was much more diplomatic).
 

Apparently, the Tourism Department and the Department of Environmental Sciences were both calling “dibs” on me and neither was willing to admit defeat.  Fulbright had selected me as a Tourism Scholar, but the Department of Environmental Sciences offers several Tourism classes, thus their interest in my services.  As gently, yet assertively as possible, I informed the Tourism HOD I wanted to be in his department.  And so the negotiations began.  I was not actually in the room for these discussions, but was sitting in the adjoining office with his secretary.  Based on what I overheard this is basically what happened:

I was the little crab and the six or so men deciding my fate were the seagulls.

In the end, thankfully, Tourism won out. Ahh, the curse of being popular.  Imagine being in a baseball stadium and the crowd chanting for their beloved MVP, “We want Kelly! We want Kelly!”  Ok, it wasn’t quite like that.  But, I will say that there was a certain decorum and protocol I witnessed, albeit with my ear pressed against the door.

Rather than being very straightforward and aggressive, negotiations here are more subdued and polite.  While both HODs and the others involved in the meeting continued to reiterate their insistence that I be on their particular faculty, no one was willing to call out the other party and say, “This is why she shouldn’t.” Instead, they tried to make the opposing side come to the conclusion that surrendering was their idea and in their best interest.

This negotiation took nearly two hours, which was agonizing for me, particularly since I could overhear everything said.  It took an incredible amount of willpower for me to sit still with my mouth shut and not burst through the door to tell them my thoughts.  But this was a good learning experience for me.  I now understand that conflicts here take a considerable amount of time and discussion to resolve.  While that may not be what I am accustomed to, that is my reality from this point forward, so I am willing to acclimate to this standard.