Four MSU doctoral students have been awarded prestigious 2006-2007 Fulbright-Hays fellowships supporting six to twelve months of dissertation research activities abroad. Aptly named the Fellowship for Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA), the award includes a sizeable stipend for travel, living expenses, and research costs. Three of the recipients are in doctoral programs in the College of Education and the fourth is in the Department of Anthropology in the College of Social Science. The MSU awards, with an average value of more than $24,000, will allow the four recipients to conduct important research in Lesotho, Paraguay, Tanzania and Moldova, respectively.

Stephen Backman is a doctoral candidate in teacher education who will use his fellowship to examine issues of language policy in education in the small southern African country of Lesotho. He is presently finishing up a master’s degree in linguistics at MSU while concurrently working towards his Ph.D. in curriculum, policy, and teacher education. As a Fulbright Fellow, Backman will investigate how elementary school teachers in Lesotho deal with the policy of having to teach in English when most of their students have little knowledge of the language. This policy has created a major barrier for many students in Lesotho to progress in their education. Backman anticipates that his research will inform future policy decisions and assist in the training of teachers in southern Africa.

Aliah Carolan-Silva is also a doctoral candidate in teacher education. She will use her fellowship to examine the dynamics of community participation in curricular decision-making in three communities in rural Paraguay, where she spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer. She will investigate the participation of local actors, such as teachers, administrators and parents, in the process of identifying and responding to local needs through curricular decisions, as well as the influence of these decisions on students’ access to knowledge across communities.

Marita Eibl is a doctoral student in anthropology in the College of Social Science. Throughout her studies, Eibl has been interested in the intersection of health and gender. She will use her fellowship to explore issues of HIV/AIDS treatment, NGOs, and women in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her research will focus on the arrival in that country of antiretrovirals (ARVs) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS and, more specifically, how these medicines will be made available to women, who are the predominantly infected and affected group. She hopes that her study will contribute to developing better ARV distribution programs in Tanzania and elsewhere in East Africa.

Nils Kauffman, a doctoral student in educational policy, studies the evolution of post-Soviet education systems. He will be conducting his dissertation research in Moldova, where he previously served in the Peace Corps and where he has already conducted some preliminary study and research with the help of other fellowships. He will study how teachers in that country work and change in an educational system affected by lack of funding, corruption, rapid social change, a multi-ethnic population, and even a lack of proper heating during winter months.

The Fulbright-Hays DDRA Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards for U.S. students wishing to study overseas. It is one component of the broader Fulbright Program, created after World War II and named for former U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright. The aim of all Fulbright programs is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries through the exchange of people, knowledge and skills.

MSU has been a robust participant in Fulbright programs over the years. Frank D’Itri (ditri@msu.edu) is the MSU Fulbright Program advisor. Information for MSU students and faculty, and for visiting scholars, is available from the following web pages: