FIU professors named Fulbright Scholars

By Susan Feinberg

Three FIU professors have received Fulbright Scholar grants to teach and conduct research overseas this year, and a professor from Maharan Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology in India served as a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at the university.

Eric Dwyer, associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, received a Fulbright award to promote local expertise in English language teaching at the National University of Rwanda. He’s teaching methodology courses and working with professors with strong English language skills who will be instructing students who have not mastered the language. He is also teaching classes in English as a second language.

“When communities wish to add English or any language, there is usually cultural and linguistic loss,” said Dwyer. “I’m interested in maintaining the indigenous language and preserving the unique perspectives and culture in these communities.”

Walter Z. Tang, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was named a first Fulbright Lectureship Scholar. He is teaching three courses in the Environmental Management and Clean Production graduate program at Tallinn University of Technology (TUT) in the Republic of Estonia. Students from Estonia, France, Germany, Pakistan and China are taking these core courses required by graduate program, which is accredited by the European Union. During this time, he also plans to complete his book, Physicochemical Treatment of Landfill Leachate.

“The most amazing thing that I have experienced is how warmly my colleagues here have welcomed me as a Fulbright Scholar,” said Tang. “Because the average age of professors in the department is 65 years old, some of the curriculum is still from the old Soviet Union. Therefore, I am updating the core body of knowledge for the program.”

Mathew Mirow, professor at the College of Law, received a Fulbright U.S. Visiting Scholar award. From July to December 2009 he taught a class at the law school of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso in Chile that provided historical and comparative perspectives on the Anglo-American legal system. He also conducted research on Latin American constitutionalism and how the Spanish Constitution of Cadiz (1812) left a lasting mark on constitutional law in Latin America.

“As a student of Latin American law, the research I conducted in Chile through the support of the Fulbright Commission and the Ministry of Education of Chile assisted me greatly in developing and thinking about my project,” Mirow said. “I was able to present my ideas to some of the best legal historians in the country, to get their ideas and to follow their suggestions.”

Pradeep Singh, associate professor at Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology in Udaipur, India, was a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at FIU’s Department of Earth and Environment from September 2009 to January 2010. During that time, he taught an undergraduate course on rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharging technologies and presented guest seminars on this topic to FIU faculty and students. The Fulbright award also provided a maintenance grant for his research on the development of  low-cost technologies of rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharging for sustainable water resources development in the Wakel River Basin in Rajasthan, India.

“This was an excellent opportunity to interact with FIU faculty members and share our research findings,” Singh said. “ I received very constructive suggestions in respect to my research which will certainly strengthen and provide further guidelines for its  accomplishment.”