UH Professors Receive Fulbright Grant To Teach Abroad

University of Hawaiʻi
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Posted: May 14, 2001

HONOLULU - Two of the 2000­2001 Fulbright scholar grants have beenawarded to University of Hawai'i at Manoa's associate professor VirginiaBennett of the Department of European Languages and Literatures and professorThomas Hilgers of the Department of English.

This year, approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals receivedFulbright grants to lecture or conduct research in 140 countries aroundthe world. A similar number of foreign visiting scholars received awardsto come to the U.S., primarily as researchers.

Dr. Bennett received her doctorate degree in languages and literaturefrom Princeton University. She has been with UH Manoa for 13 years, teachingsurvey courses on nineteenth and early twentieth century Russian literature,and contemporary Russian literature. Most of her research has been on Russiansymbolism, which she has published many articles on. She has also publishedworks related to Russian folklore. She received a Fulbright grant to teachin Russia during Spring 2001 and plans to return to Manoa this coming fall.

Dr. Hilgers received his master's and doctorate degree in psychologyfrom UH Manoa and has been teaching here since 1993. He is a professor ofEnglish and is the director of the Manoa Writing Program. His Fulbrightgrant allowed him to work in Thailand during the fall of 2000. He offeredfaculty workshops on "teaching with writing" at eight universities,including Chiang Mai in north Thailand and Prince of Songkla Universityin the south.

Fulbright grants are made to U.S. citizens and nationals of other countriesfor a variety of educational activities, primarily university lecturing,advanced research, graduate study and teaching in elementary and secondaryschools. Since the program's inception, more than 85,000 U.S. Fulbrightscholars have traveled abroad to lecture or conduct research in a wide varietyof academic and professional fields ranging from journalism and urban planningto music, philosophy and zoology. More than 144,000 foreign citizens havecome to the U.S. under Fulbright grants.