La Jolla, Calif. – Prof. Paul Majkut, Ph.D. has been awarded a Senior Fulbright Scholar Specialist grant. Prof. Majkut teaches in the Department of Arts and Humanities, College of Letters and Sciences, National University.
Prof. Majkut will teach an advanced course on American culture and society at Jyvaskyla University, in Jyvaskyla, Finland in 2007. The course will focus on various aspects of American life — including film, literature, and politics — in an historical context.
“We are proud of Dr. Majkut’s work and the recognition it has brought to National University. He is very deserving of the Senior Fulbright Scholar Specialist grant,” said Dr. Michael McAnear, Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences at National University. “I am confident our programs will benefit from what he learns during his Fulbright experience.”
The Specialist award in Finland is Dr. Majkut’s second Fulbright. In 2003, he received a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“There is a great deal of misunderstanding throughout the world on the great diversity of opinion, values and peoples of the United States,” Prof. Majkut said. “From its inception, the Fulbright program has attempted to show America and Americans to the world as we are in all of our contradictions, confusions, and aspirations.”
In 2006, Prof. Majkut was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant for research at Cambridge University, England. He spent the summer in Cambridge researching the representation and development of the seven deadly sins in medieval illuminated manuscripts. Dr. Majkut also holds privileges as a Reader of rare books and manuscripts at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. He is frequently invited to give lectures at foreign universities. In November, 2006, he spoke in Chiapas, Mexico on the seven deadly sins in the context of contemporary globalization, “The Deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins: Greed.”
“When Prof. Majkut receives an award, he always returns with fresh material and views to improve our graduate program in English,” said Dr. Janet Baker, the chair of the Department of Arts and Humanities. “Our program’s excellence is due to the work of a faculty that constantly seeks improvement.”
Prof. Majkut is one of over 400 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad this year through the Fulbright Senior Specialists Program. The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program, created in 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, provides short-term academic opportunities (two to six weeks) to prominent U.S. faculty and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post secondary, academic institutions around the world.
The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 60 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have taught, studied or conducted research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the United States.
Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement. Among thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation. Distinguished Fulbright Senior Specialist participants include Mahmoud Ayoub, Professor of Religion at Temple University, Heidi Hartmann, President and CEO, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Percy R. Luney, Jr. Dean and Professor, College of Law, Florida A&M University and Emily Vargas-Barone, Founder and Executive Director of the RISE Institute.
For more information about National University, visit www.nu.edu.