PCEC News
CIS Faculty Selected for Fulbright Grant
January 22, 2020
In the Winter of 2019, Dr. Robert Adams was a visiting professor on a Fulbright Grant at Fachhochschule Joanneum (FHJ) in Graz, Austria. For those not familiar, the Fulbright Program provides funding for American faculty and students to spend time at a university overseas, as well as assisting faculty and students abroad to visit universities in America. This article is Dr. Adams’ experience while in Austria.
“Fachhochschule” is often translated as “University of Applied Science”, and FH Joanneum is similar to Grand Valley in terms of the variety of programs they deliver, and the kinds of hands-on experience they offer students. I was placed in the Institute of eHealth within the Department of Applied Computer Science. I didn’t have a regular teaching schedule, and instead delivered several guest lectures across seven courses, five programs, and two departments. I gave lectures in object-oriented design, national and international healthcare systems, project management, applied eHealth, and created and delivered an in-depth Python workshop.
While there I had colleagues encourage me to take a look at functional programming, something I hadn’t touched in a few years. I spent some time exploring two functional languages, Haskell and Clojure. I also started to explore augmented reality, and wrote a couple of apps using Google’s Augmented Reality Kit for Android.
One of the most rewarding aspects of a Fulbright Grant is being what Senator Fulbright called a “citizen ambassador”, allowing Austrians to hear about life in America, and bringing Austrian experiences back to the US. I was asked on countless occasions about the current administration in the US. I also had conversations about higher education tuition, gun control, drug laws, and other topics that Austrians only hear about from their news media.
Finally, being in Austria has strengthened my conviction that preparing students to work globally is critical. Students need to be made aware that their attitudes, expectations, and assumptions about work, relationships, conflict resolution, problem solving, etc. may be unique. There may be other ways of addressing issues that are equally valid.