29th Annual Conference

Overview

“Fulbright Alumni:  Expressions in Civil Society” & “Morocco in Western Art”

Kenzi Farah Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco

November 3-7, 2006

Program

Thank you to all who joined us in Marrakech!  350 people from 60 countries attended, making the Fulbright Association’s 29th Annual Conference one of the largest and most international conferences ever hosted by the Association. 

The Fulbright Association and the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association joined forces, and together with the Moroccan American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange and the U.S. Department of State, organized five days of programming for Fulbright alumni from around the world. 

A special thank you goes to our co-sponsors, whose support made possible the exciting conference program.


Food Vendor, Jemaa l-Fna, Marrakech, Morocco

In conjunction with the two conferences, the Fulbright Association, with the support of the U.S. Department of State, sponsored a global Fulbright alumni technical assistance seminar for representatives of national Fulbright alumni associations and alumni groups in the process of developing associations. 


Tourists stroll through the Souks or
traditional markets of Marrakech


View of a street in Marrakech’s medina
or old town.


Al Koutoubia Mosque, Jemaa l-Fna,
Marrakech, Morocco


Jemaa l-Fna, Marrakech’s town square, Empty during
the day, the square fills with people buying, selling,
eating, and socializing every night of the week.


Pastry Vendor

Venue

The Fulbright Association’s 29th Annual Conference will be held at the Kenzi Farah Hotel in Marrakech, Morocco; however, as of Oct. 10, 2006, the hotel is fully booked.

Conference participants still in need of a hotel room should make arrangements to stay at another hotel in Marrakech.

Sharing a Hotel Room
If you would like to share a hotel room with another conference participant, please visit the Marrakech Hotel/Travel Share message board to review listings for roommates or to post your own request.  Be sure to specify whether you will be at the Kenzi Farah or Atlas Asni.

Reservation Information
Double Room Rate:
880 MA per night, including breakfast.
Single Room Rate:
680 MAD per night, including breakfast.

Conference Schedule

Friday, November 3
2:00-5:00 p.m. (14:00-17:00), Chapter Seminar

  • Moderator:  Kristjen Lundberg, Director, Chapter Relations, Fulbright Association
  • Janet Haner (Germany 2002) Secretary, Central Pennsylvania Chapter and Public Affairs Coordinator, Penn State University Office of International Programs
  • Everette Penn (Egypt 2005), President, Houston/Southeast Texas Chapter and Assistant Professor of Criminology and Cross-Cultural Studies, University of Houston-Clear Lake
  • Rick A. Ruth, Director, Office of Policy and Evaluation, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs; and Director, Public Diplomacy Evaluation Office, Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State
  • Linda Scanlan (Bulgaria 1993, Kosovo 2001), Secretary, Southeast Virginia Chapter and Professor of Journalism (ret.), Norfolk State University

7:00 p.m. (19:00) Opening Reception at Jana Marrakech, sponsored by the Moroccan American Commission for Education and Cultural Exchange (MACECE)

  • Welcome: Daoud Casewit, Executive Secretary, MACECE
  • Remarks: Evelyn A. Early (Egypt 1976, Syria 1982), Counselor for Cultural and Press Affairs, U.S. Embassy Rabat
  • Performance: Elsa Ludwig-Verdehr and Walter Verdehr (Austria 1965), Founding Members, Verdehr Trio

Saturday, November 4

9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (09:00-17:00), International Fulbright Alumni Technical Assistance Seminar co-sponsored by the Fulbright Association and the U.S. Department of State

  • Capacity building seminar for officers and other representatives of Fulbright alumni organizations around the world.

9:00-11:00 a.m., The Universal and Unique Expressions of Cultures on Curricula, a Program of the International Education Task Force

  • Moderator:  Jenise Englund (Germany 1961, 1962, 1996, UK 1984, Norway 1991, Belgium 1992), Co-Chair, International Education Task Force; International Education Consultant, EEE
  • Lewis Jillings (USA 1990), Associate Vice Provost for International Programs, Pennsylvania State University
  • Discussant:  Steven Lund (Slovakia 2003), Professor, Division of Modern Languages, Arizona Western College

Malindi’s Journey: Researching and Teaching the Connections between Africa and China Through the Silk Routes, and the Impact on Student Achievement in Elementary and Middle School

  • Alicia Carroll (Kenya & Tanzania 2004), Teacher, Boston Public School System
  • Lucy Montgomery, Teacher, Boston Public School System

Discussion of Secondary School Curriculum and Experiences in Morocco and the U.S.A.

  • Miloud Aakiri (USA), Teacher of English as a Foreign Language
  • Charafa Jai Mansouri (USA 1995), Poet, Writer, and Teacher of English as a Foreign Language
  • Gerald Siegel (Yugoslavia 1998, Belgium 1997, Macedonia 2004), Professor of English, York College of Pennsylvania

11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m., Arts Task Force Program

  • Moderator: Leonard Lehrer (Greece 2001 & 2003), Dean, School of Fine and Performing Arts, Columbia College Chicago
  • Judy C. Davison (United Kingdom 2004), Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, Western Kentucky University
  • Rochelle Kainer (Russia 2004), Analytic Psychologist
  • Marie Herseth Kenote (Germany 1977), Associate Professor of Music, Nyack College

The Poetics of House and Home

  • Edmunds V. Bunkse (Sweden 1983, United Kingdom 1983, Latvia 1990), Professor of Geography, University of Delaware

Two Languages,” A Reading of Poetry and Prose Examining “Transcultural” Life

  • Julie Fay (France 2004), Professor of English, East Carolina University

12:45-6:30 p.m. (12:45-18:30), Individual Presentations by Arts Task Force Members

12:45-6:30 p.m. (12:45-18:30), Self-guided or guided excursions of Marrakech

7:00-9:30 p.m. (19:00-21:30), Annual Banquet & Keynote Address

  • Martti Ahtisaari (2000 Fulbright Prize Laureate), President of Finland (1994-2000), and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo

Sunday, November 5
9:00-9:30 a.m., Opening Remarks

  • R. Fenton-May (USA 1967), President, Fulbright Association
  • Wail Benjelloun, Treasurer, Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange

9:30-11:00 a.m., Women and Civil Society

  • Moderator: Suzanne Moyer (Morocco 2006), Executive Consultant, the Rae Group
  • Sangita Rayamajhi (USA 2003), President, Fulbright Alumni Association of Nepal
  • Stephanie Willman Bordat (Morocco 1991), Morocco Program Director, Global Rights: Partners for Justice (formerly the International Human Rights Law Group)
  • Saloua Zerhouni (USA 1999), Assistant Professor, Political Science, Mohammed V University, Rabat

11:00-11:15 a.m., Coffee Break

11:15 a.m.-12:45 p.m. (11:15-12:45), How People Engage in Global Conversations

  • Moderator: Jennifer Moore (Tanzania 2002), Professor of Law and Director of Peace Studies Program, University of New Mexico School of Law
  • Louise M. Bourgault (Mali 2002), Internationalization Coordinator and Professor of Communication and Performance Studies, Northern Michigan University
  • Carol B. Thompson (Zimbabwe 1985), Professor of Political Science, Northern Arizona University

1:00-2:30 p.m. (13:00-14:30), Plenary Luncheon

  • Alex Counts (Bangladesh 1988), President, Grameen Foundation USA

2:45-3:30 p.m. (14:45-15:30), Annual Business Meeting

  • R. Fenton-May (USA 1967), President, Fulbright Association, Presiding
  • Marilyn Berg Callander (Nepal 1991), President-Elect, Fulbright Association

3:30-4:00 p.m. (15:30-16:00), Remarks by U.S. Ambassador Thomas Riley

  • The Honorable Thomas T. Riley, United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco

4:15-5:15 p.m. (16:15-17:15), 2006 Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund Lecture, Where My Dancing Had Saved Me from Disgrace

  • Introduction: Jane L. Anderson, Executive Director, Fulbright Association
  • Barbara Browning (Brazil 1983), Associate Professor, Department of Performance Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University

5:30 p.m. (17:30), Fulbright Association Conference Adjourned

7:00 p.m. (19:00), Opening Reception for Bridging Cultures Through Art, an International Fulbright Alumni Art Exhibition

  • Sponsored by the Moroccan Fulbright Alumni Association and the Fulbright Association’s Arts Task Force
  • Juried by Jules Maidoff (Italy 1956)

Monday, November 6
Morning Session 1, Opening of MFAA Conference

Morning Session 2, Moroccan Mirrors: Matisse, Majorelle and Many More

Lunch Break

Afternoon Session 1, Moroccan Lights: Moroccan Sights

Afternoon Session 2, Moroccan Myths, Moroccan Mirages

Afternoon Session 3, Hollywood’s Morocco, Hollywood in Morocco

Tuesday, November 7

Morning Session 1, Moroccan Images, Images of Moroccans

Morning Session 2, Moroccan Themes, Moroccan Metaphors

Lunch Break

Afternoon Session 1, Through Western Eyes: Expressions of Morocco

Afternoon Session 2, Cultural Influence: Art, Music, and Architecture

Evening Session, Violin Recital

Sponsors

The American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS)

The Lauder Institute: MBA/MA Program at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

The Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange

Michigan State University

Penn State International Programs

Keynote Address

 

Martti Ahtisaari], (2000 Fulbright Prize Laureate), President of Finland (1994-2000), and Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo, delivered the keynote address at the Fulbright Association’s 29th Annual Conference in Marrakech, Morocco, on Nov. 4, 2006.

Bios

On Nov. 14, 2005, Martti Ahtisaari was appointed special envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations for the future status process for Kosovo. Mr. Ahtisaari was elected president of the Republic of Finland in February 1994 and held office from March 1, 1994, to Feb. 29, 2000.  Upon leaving office, Mr. Ahtisaari founded the Crisis Management Initiative, where he is chairman of the board.  His post-presidential activities have included facilitating the peace process between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement, chairing an independent panel on the security and safety of UN personnel in Iraq, and inspecting the IRA’s arms’ dumps with fellow inspector Cyril Ramaphosa.  In December 2000, the Fulbright Association awarded Mr. Ahtisaari the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding.  Mr. Ahtisaari joined the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in 1965, holding various posts in the ministry’s Bureau for Technical cooperation from 1965 to 1972 and serving as assistant director from 1971 to 1972.  He was deputy director in the ministry’s Department for International Development Co-operation between 1972 and 1973 and was a member of the Government Advisory Committee on Trade and Industrialisation Affairs of Developing Countries from 1971 to 1973.  Mr. Ahtisaari served as Ambassador of Finland to the United Republic of Tanzania (1973-1976) and was also accredited to Zambia, Somalia, and Mozambique (1975-1976).  He served as a member of the Senate of the UN Institute for Namibia between 1975 and 1976. Mr. Ahtisaari served as UN Commissioner for Namibia from 1977 to 1981. He was appointed special representative of the secretary general for Namibia in July 1978.  Mr. Ahtisaari served from 1984 to 1986 as under-secretary of state in charge of international development co-operation in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, as well as special representative of the secretary general for Namibia.  He was governor for Finland in the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and in the Inter-American Development Bank, as well as in the International Fund for Agricultural Development.  Mr. Ahtisaari during that period chaired the Board of Directors for the Finnish Industrialization Fund for developing countries.  Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar appointed Mr. Ahtisaari as under-secretary general for administration and management in January 1987, in which capacity he served until June 30, 1991.  Mr. Ahtisaari retained his functions as special representative of the secretary general for Namibia and led the UN operation in Namibia (1989-1990).  On July 1, 1991, he became secretary of state in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in Helsinki.  From the beginning of September 1992 to April 1993, Mr Ahtisaari was chairman of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Working Group of the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia.  Beginning in July 1993, for a period of four months, Mr. Ahtisaari served as special adviser to the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia and as the UN secretary general’s special representative for the former Yugoslavia.

Mr. Ahtisaari graduated from the University of Oulu, Finland, in 1959 and received an honorary doctorate from his university in 1989, among many honorary degrees conferred by universities throughout the world.  In addition to the Fulbright Prize, Mr. Ahtisaari has received the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award (2000), the Hessen Peace Prize (2000), the Highest Acknowledgement of the Together for Peace Foundation (2000), the European Peacebuilder Award from the European Centre for Common Ground (2003), the Euro-Atlantic Bridge Prize from the European Foundation for Culture (2003), and the Gold Medal from the American-Scandinavian Foundation (2006).  Mr. Ahtisaari was appointed as an honorary officer in the Order of Australia in 2002.  In 2004 he was awarded with the Order of the Companions of Oliver Tambo (Supreme Companion) by South Africa.  He chairs the Balkan Children and Youth Foundation and Global Action Council of the International Youth Foundation and is a member of many corporate, civic and philanthropic boards.

As executive director of the Fulbright Association, Jane L. Anderson has worked with Fulbright alumni volunteers throughout the world and has provided professional leadership in launching the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding (1993), the Fulbright Association Fund for the 21st Century (1996), the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal Dinners (2000), the Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund for International Scholarship on Dance (2000), the Fulbright Association’s inaugural international conference in Athens, Greece (2004), and the partnership with the U.S. Department of State on the International Fulbright Alumni Development Project (2005).  Before joining the Association in 1990, she was assistant director of Lutheran Resources Commission.  A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan, Ms. Anderson has undergraduate degrees in French and in journalism and a master’s degree in linguistics.  She studied in France on a University of Michigan undergraduate program.  In June 2003 she earned the Certified Association Executive designation from the American Society of Association Executives.  Ms. Anderson currently serves as a member of the CEO Community of the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives Network.  Her writing has been published in the Miami Herald, the Chicago Sun Times, Associations Now, and in Knight-Ridder newspapers.

Wail Benjelloun is presently dean of the faculty of science of Mohammed V University.  He holds a doctoral degree in biopsychology from the State University in New York at Binghamton.  He is president of the Moroccan Association for Neuroscience and secretary general of the Association of Moroccan Biologists and the African Association for Physiological Sciences.  A widely published scientist, Dr. Benjelloun was decorated by His Majesty King Mohammed VI for his leading role in designing a research project accepted by NASA and conducted on one of the space shuttle flights.  He has also served in prominent administrative functions including as founding vice-president for academic affairs of Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane from 1994 to 1999.  He currently serves as treasurer of the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange and has been a member of the board since 1988, holding the office of president for three years (2003-05).

Stephanie Willman Bordat has been with the Morocco program of Global Rights since its creation in 2000.  Her work as Morocco program director involves the design and implementation of programs in collaboration with local NGOs to enhance knowledge of legal and human rights among illiterate and semi-literate women, to develop the capacities of NGOs in underserved areas to advocate on behalf of women’s human rights, to promote and to protect the human rights of girls and young women at risk, to increase local NGOs’ access to information and use of the Internet as an advocacy tool, and to facilitate human rights advocacy by Moroccan women at international fora.  In 2003, Ms. Willman Bordat was instrumental in expanding the Morocco program into a Maghreb-wide program that works with local NGOs in Algeria and Tunisia.  She also participated in the assessment mission to Yemen in the fall of 2000 that established Global Rights’ program in Yemen.  Previously, Ms. Willman Bordat worked with NGOs in Pakistan, Egypt, and the Netherlands on women’s human rights issues.  She also worked as a law clerk for the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission in Washington, D.C., and for one of the largest U.S.-based, feminist fund-raising coalitions in Philadelphia.  Ms. Willman Bordat was a Fulbright fellow at the Université Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco.  She holds law degrees with honors from both Columbia Law School in New York and the Université Paris I-Sorbonne in France.

A specialist in African media, Louise M. Bourgault holds the rank of professor in the Department of Communication and Performance Studies at Northern Michigan University.  She has taught mass communication there since 1984.  Dr. Bourgault currently serves her university in the role of internationalization coordinator.  Over the past 30 years, she has engaged in broadcasting and development-related work in 15 different nations on the African continent.  Dr. Bourgault has written many articles and two books, Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa (Indiana University Press, 1995) and Playing for Life:  Performance in Africa in the Age of AIDS (Carolina Academic Press, 2003).  An AIDS activist, Dr. Bourgault’s mission is to showcase African artists who use performance and media to raise awareness of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.  To this end, she has arranged many academic lectures, performances, and benefit concerts by African AIDS artists to Northern Michigan University.  Dr. Bourgault has also produced a video documentary entitled “AIDS and the Arts in Africa” (2001), distributed by Media for Development International.  In 2003, she received a Fulbright regional research grant for AIDS-related research in Mali.  Part of this research contributed directly to her latest productions.  “Two AIDS Music Videos from West Africa” and “Mali to Michigan,” a documentary on Malian pop diva Nainy Diabaté, were completed in 2006.  “Mali to Michigan” is being presented at the Fulbright Association’s 29th Annual Conference.

Barbara Browning, the 2006 Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund lecturer, is associate professor of performance studies at New York University.  She previously chaired the Performance Studies Department.  She received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature from Yale University.  In 1983 she was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for the study of popular literature in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.  Also trained as a dancer, Dr. Browning published her first book, Samba: Resistance in Motion, winner of the de la Torre Bueno Prize for an outstanding work of dance scholarship, in 1995.  She went on to write Infectious Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of African Culture, which was published in 1998.  Her articles have appeared in anthologies, as well as such publications as Dance Research Journal, TDR, Dance Chronicle, and Women & Performance.  She serves on the boards of directors of both the Congress of Research on Dance and the Society of Dance History Scholars.  Dr. Browning is also a member of the editorial board of Women & Performance and the advisory board of DRJ.  Her practical training in Brazilian dance was greatly amplified during her Fulbright year in Bahia and led to her further study, instruction, and performance of Brazilian dance in Brazil, the United States, and Europe.  She performed for several years with both the Loremil Machado Afro-Brazilian Dance Company and Silvana Magda’s Viva Bahia.  While no longer performing professionally, she continues to merge practical engagement of body practices with her scholarly work, which broadly addresses performance and politics in the African diaspora.

Edmunds Bunkše, a cultural-humanities geographer, was born in the Latvian Baltic Sea port city of Liepāja.  His family fled Soviet occupation in 1944, lived in a displaced persons camp in Lubeck, Germany, and in 1950, emigrated to the United States, where he became a citizen.  He studied architecture, then earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from Syracuse University and master’s (1966) and doctoral degrees (1973) in geography from the University of California Berkeley.  He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Latvia and is a foreign member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Bunkse began developing geography as a humanities and arts subject with his dissertation at Berkeley, “The Earth, the Forest, and the Sea:  Man and Nature in Latvian Folk Poetry.”  He has investigated art and science in the works of Alexander von Humboldt, the American landscape painter Frederick E. Church, and Saint-Exupéry.  On his Fulbright to Lund University in Sweden in 1983, Dr. Bunkse abandoned the practice of traditional geography. While there, he interpreted the writings of the poet Sylvia Plath in terms of how she perceived her place in landscapes and the larger universe.  Ultimately, he began to “write geography as literature.”  In 1995, his book, Geography and the Art of Life, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.  He is professor at the University of Delaware and an adjunct professor at the University of Latvia.

A former associate professor, adjunct, at Drew University’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Marilyn Berg Callander has been a member of the Fulbright Association Board of Directors for six years, serving for four years as secretary and also as chair of the Development and Recognition Committee.  In 1991, Dr. Callander received a Fulbright senior scholar award for lecturing and research at Tribhuvan University in Kirtipur, Nepal.  She then established the Drew-in-Nepal Program, a scholarship award for Nepali students to study some aspect of American culture in the Caspersen School.  A graduate of Arcadia University (formerly Beaver College), she holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Drew University and is a member of Drew University’s Phi Beta Kappa Chapter.  The Department of State awarded her a certificate of appreciation “in recognition of outstanding skills in cultural teaching and sensitivity to Nepal’s needs as a new democracy.”  She was later awarded an honorary Fulbright to continue her work in helping to found Tribhuvan’s American Studies Program, where she served for several years as a consultant.  Dr. Callander also served as scholar-in-residence at Mahasarakham University in Thailand and led a seminar on American literature at Beijing University in China at the inception of the American Studies Program there.  She is the author of Willa Cather and the Fairy Tale and has completed a collection in English of Nepali folktales.  She is presently working on a second book on Willa Cather.

Alicia Carroll is a graduate of Wheelock College and has been teaching in Boston Public Schools since 1997.  She was a founding teacher of the Mission Hill School in Roxbury, Mass., and has taught kindergarten for nearly 10 years.  She is currently a teacher developer with the Boston Public Schools, mentoring teachers through their first year in the classroom.  She has developed and published thematic curriculum units entitled “Young Children Learning about Ancient China through Archeology, Ancient Nubia and Egypt” and “Learning to Read Nature’s Book,” an interdisciplinary, project-based unit on the study of the environment and social justice.  Ms. Carroll received the Boston Superintendent’s Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2002.  In 2004, she was a Fulbright scholar to Kenya and Tanzania.  She also received a Fund for Teachers Fellowship for research in those countries.  In 2005 and in 2006, Ms. Carroll was selected for “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.”  Ms. Carroll and her colleague Lucy Montgomery are the founders of Malindi’s Education Consultants©, specializing in interdisciplinary curriculum development.  Their current project is the research and writing of a children’s book entitled Malindi’s Journey, the story of a giraffe brought by African ambassadors to China with the treasure ships of Zheng He, the Chinese Muslim explorer of the 15th century.

Daoud S. Casewit has served as executive secretary of the Moroccan-American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange since 1996.  Before joining the commission, he directed the American Language Center and the Language Institute in Fez, Morocco.  He has also been an English as a foreign language instructor in Morocco, Egypt, and Saudia Arabia.  He received his master’s degree in applied linguistics from the American University in Cairo in 1984 and his bachelor’s degree in Arabic Studies in 1983.  He was featured in a guest interview on the al-Jazeera talk show Ziyarah Khassah (“Private Visit”, which was recorded in his home).  The interview focused on his life story and worldview and was broadcast on three successive days.  He has also been a guest on the 45-minute-long Arabic-language talk show al-Hurrah Tuqaddim (“al-Hurrah Presents”) on al-Hurrah TV focusing on his role in mediating between cultures in the context of the Fulbright program.  Dr. Casewit has been tapped to deliver a number of public lectures, most recently speaking in Arabic at the Municipal Cultural Center in Fez about the notion of progress in the light of the Quran and Hadith at a program organized by the regional Council of Religious Scholars.  In the framework of an outreach program organized by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, he delivered the lecture “Where Do East and West Meet?  Mutual Perceptions between the Arab World and the U.S.,” which highlighted the philosophy and role of the Fulbright program.  He is currently working on the book Contemplative Guide to the Prophet’s City and is the author of a number of chapters and articles published in the United States and the United Kingdom.

As president and CEO of Grameen Foundation, Alex Counts leads an organization that has grown to a global network of 52 microfinance partners in 22 countries.  A 1988 Cornell University graduate with a degree in economics, Mr. Counts deepened his commitment to poverty eradication during his Fulbright fellowship at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, where he witnessed dire poverty as well as innovative solutions.  He then trained to be a catalyst for change under Grameen Bank founder and managing director Dr. Muhammad Yunus, a Fulbright fellow to the United States in 1963 and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.  Mr. Counts started Grameen Foundation in 1997 with $6,000 in seed capital and a charge from Dr. Yunus to channel human, financial, and technological resources in the United States to support the growth of the poverty-focused microfinance movement.  Today Grameen Foundation impacts an estimated 11 million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Arab world.  Its annual budget has grown in each year of its existence, from $100,000 in 1997 to over $11 million in 2005.  Mr. Counts is author of Give Us Credit:  How Muhammad Yunus’s Microlending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago (Random House, 1996).  The book’s Indian edition inspired the establishment of Grameen Koota, a microfinance institution in Bangalore that had served 14,000 women as of March 2005.  Mr. Counts’s writing has been published in the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere.   Before establishing Grameen Foundation, he worked in Bangladesh establishing Grameen Bank’s flagship publication Grameen Dialogue and as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh, CARE’s largest mission.  Mr. Counts speaks fluent Bengali.  In between stints in Bangladesh, he served as the legislative director of RESULTS, an international grassroots citizen’s lobbying group working to create the political will to end hunger and to advocate strategies to support global health, education, and microfinance initiatives.  Mr. Counts chairs the board of Project Enterprise in New York City.  He is a board member of Fonkoze USA, which supports microfinance in Haiti, and of the PLAN Fund, a microfinance institution serving low-income people in Dallas, Texas.  He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Katalysis Bootstrap Fund and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Grameen Dialogue.

Judy Davison is assistant professor of education at Western Kentucky University (WKU) where she specializes in differentiation of curriculum and instruction for diverse learners.  Her current research focus is under-served populations in gifted education and teaching for cultural awareness.  Her appreciation for cultural awareness and her experience with special needs (disabilities and giftedness) resulted in work with the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a monitor for special needs students in six Bureau of Indian Affairs schools across the United States.  Her commitment to social justice and to student needs also led to her work with an inner city school in Chicago.  Dr. Davison has varied international professional experiences, including serving as the University of Northern Iowa coordinator and researcher for the Orava Project, a collaboration between UNI and Slovakia; teaching a graduate course for University of Alabama delivered in Ascunsion, Paraguay; acting asWKU representative for the Consortium for Belize Educational Cooperation organization; initiating WKU student-teaching opportunities in Belize; and presenting at British Education Research Association (BERA) conferences. After developing relationships through BERA, she was named a Fulbright senior specialist and served at the University of Greenwich in June 2004.

Evelyn A. Early, counselor for press and cultural affairs at the American Embassy in Rabat, is currently a diplomat and formerly an anthropologist who conducted research in Lebanon on Shi’a voluntary associations; in Egypt—with support of Fulbright pre-doctoral, National Institute of  Mental Health and Social Science Research Council grants—on popular Islam and medical anthropology amongst traditional urban women; and in Syria—with support of a Fulbright Islamic Civilization grant—on popular culture.  In addition to her study Baladi Women of Cairo:  Playing with an Egg and a Stone and her co-edited book with Donna Lee Bowen Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, she has written such articles as “Syrian Television Drama:  Permitted Political Discourse,” “Darid Laham:  A Modern Syrian Political Satirist in the Tradition of Goha,” “Fertility and Fate,” “Getting it Together:  Business Narratives of Baladi Women of Cairo, Egypt,” and “Bahithat al-Badiya:  Cairo Viewed from the Fayyum Oasis.”  Dr. Early received her master’s degree in Middle East studies from the American University of Beirut in 1970 and her doctorate in anthropology at the University of Chicago in 1980.  She taught at the Universities of New Mexico, Notre Dame, and Houston and has served as a consultant to the United States Agency for International Development and other institutions in the fields of medical anthropology and women in development.  Dr. Early joined the diplomatic service in the eighties and before coming to Rabat last year worked as the director of the American Cultural Center in Khartoum, Sudan; the press attaché for the American Embassy in Rabat; the country affairs officer for North Africa at the United States Information Agency in Washington; the director of the American Cultural Center in Damascus, and the counselor for press and cultural affairs at the American Embassy in Prague, Czech Republic.

Semi-retired after more than 40 years of teaching English, French, German, social sciences, and American and British studies to children, college students, and adults, Jenise Englund now conducts research, consults on international education issues, and is in the preliminary process of co-editing a book on Fulbright teacher exchanges.  Born, raised, and educated in the greater Los Angeles area, she has studied, taught, lectured, and traveled extensively throughout the United States and the world. Ms. Englund has an undergraduate degree in French from the University of Redlands and a master’s degree in political science from California State University, Long Beach.  In addition to Fulbright grants to Germany (three awards), England, Norway, and Belgium/Luxemburg, she has received several scholarships and fellowships in linguistics, political science, English, German, and education.  Ms. Englund is co-chair of the Fulbright Association’s International Education Task Force.

Julie Fay is professor of English at the University of North Carolina/East Carolina University.  Her most recent poetry collection, Blue Scorpion, was a finalist for the Truman State University T. S. Eliot Award in 2004.  Her fiction, poetry, essays, and translations have appeared in journals in the United States and in France, Ireland, Slovenia, England, and elsewhere.  Interviews with her have appeared on Azerbaijan’s national television station and on Canal U in France.  Ms. Fay was a 2004 Fulbright scholar at the Université Paul Valéry, France, where she translated Occitan writer Max Rouquette and worked on a new book of her own, set on the St. James pilgrimage route. She is currently editing a collection of contemporary Anglophone literature set in the Languedoc region of France where she lives part of each year.  An invited professor at the Université de Toulouse/Le Mirail, she is developing an international creative writing course to be offered online and via global classrooms.  It is scheduled to be launched in the spring of 2007. The workshop will encourage the exchange of ideas among young writers around the world.

R. Fenton-May retired as director of operations development at The Coca-Cola Company, where he had worked for nearly 30 years, and had also served as president, Coca-Cola China Ltd., from 1986 to 1993.  He now resides in Atlanta and is a private investor and chairman of e*freightrac, LLC, a leading global supplier of mobile telematics to the transportation and logistics industry.  Dr. Fenton-May received a Fulbright grant in 1967 to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned a doctorate in chemical engineering.  He went to high school in Zimbabwe and received his bachelor of science degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.  Dr. Fenton-May holds memberships in the Society of International Business Fellows, the Institute of Food Technologists, Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi, and the Hong Kong Club.  He received the University of Edinburgh Royal Bank of Scotland Alumnus of the Year Award in 1993 and a University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering Distinguished Service Citation in 1994.  Dr. Fenton-May has served on the national Board of Directors of the Fulbright Association since 1998 and as president since June 2003.  He was President of the Association’s Georgia Chapter in 2002 and in 2003.  He serves on various alumni boards and committees of the University of Edinburgh and on the board of the Anti-Prejudice Consortium in Atlanta.  He has previously served both as a director and as chair of the Engineering Industrial Liaison Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Since March 1998, Janet A. Haner has been an integral part of Penn State University’s International Programs (IP).  In addition to her responsibilities as public affairs coordinator, she works with colleagues to promote the Fulbright program to Penn State faculty,  She also serves as the secretary of the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the Fulbright Association, which welcomes visiting Fulbrighters to the area.  Mrs. Haner was awarded a Fulbright grant through the German International Education Administrator’s Seminar in April 2002.  She is editor of International Mosaic, an IP publication.  She has written a number of articles dealing with different aspects of international education and recently joined the board of the Pennsylvania Council for International Education as chair of the communications committee.  Prior to her current position, Mrs. Haner was an instructor and researcher at Penn State and also lived and worked for more than eight years in Germany.  She holds a master’s degree in recreation from the Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor’s degree in English and music from St. Lawrence University.

Lewis Jillings was born in New Zealand, where he graduated with First Class Honours in German from Auckland University.  After graduate study in Basel, Switzerland, he did his doctorate in German at Queen Mary College, London.  For more than 20 years he was a German professor at the new University of Stirling, Scotland, teaching and doing research in medieval literature and culture, polemic in the German Renaissance and Reformation, and language, culture, and propaganda in the Third Reich.  After teaching at Giessen University, Germany, he came to the United States in 1990 on a Fulbright grant and taught at the University of California, Davis, and then spent two years on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles. Upon his arrival at Penn State in 1996, he served as director of summer sessions and for three years as chief academic officer at the Mont Alto campus.  He then joined Penn State’s International Programs as associate dean in 2000 and has been head of the office since 2002.

An analytic psychologist in private practice, Rochelle G.K. Kainer also serves on the senior faculty of the Washington School of Psychiatry.  She writes and lectures extensively on the clinical and creative aspects of projection, identification, and ideal formation. She was a 2003-04 Fulbright scholar to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she conducted seminars on her clinical book, The Collapse of the Self and Its Therapeutic Restoration.  She also researched the creative will of the 20th century avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich.

Marie Herseth Kenote is associate professor of music at Nyack (N.Y.) College and is a member of the Kenote Trio with her violist husband, Peter Kenote.  She performs on occasion with the New York Philharmonic, with which she has participated in radio and television broadcasts and recordings with conductors Kurt Masur, Leonard Bernstein, Eric Leinsdorf, Leonard Slatkin, Zubin Mehta, and others.  Most recently, she performed in three Carnegie Weill Recital Hall concerts sponsored by MidAmerica Productions with members of the New York Philharmonic and with the Kenote Trio.  Dr. Kenote has also performed with many other orchestras, including the New Jersey Symphony and with Mostly Mozart Orchestra.  She concertizes as a soloist and chamber musician in France, Germany, Norway, Holland, Poland, and the United States.  CDs include Concert Spirituel (Excelsis XL6, 2000), Octets by Alec Wilder (Kleos Classics, 2001), and The Miracle by William Bolcom (Ethereal Recordings ER-135, 2000).  Recent publications include the article “Leipzig Set: The Flute Music of Reinecke, Niemann, Karg-Elert and Wissmann,” published in Fluit, the quarterly journal of the Netherlands Flute Society.  Dr. Kenote holds a bachelor’s degree in music from the New England Conservatory of Music, a master’s degree in music from the Juilliard School, and a doctoral degree in music arts from Rutgers University.  She spent a year in Berlin on a Fulbright fellowship.

Leonard Lehrer is a painter, printmaker, and academician whose work has been seen internationally for three decades.  He has had 43 solo exhibitions in the United States, Germany, Austria, and Spain.  Museums that have collected examples of his work include the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; and the Sprengel Museum of Art, Hannover, Germany, among others.  Formerly, Mr. Lehrer served as director of the School of Art, Arizona State University, and as chair, Department of Art and Art Professions, New York University.  He is now dean, School of Fine and Performing Arts, Columbia College Chicago.  Mr. Lehrer also serves as trustee of the International Print Center New York; trustee of apexart; and trustee of the International Centre for Culture and Management, Salzburg, Austria.  He is chair of the Arts Advisory Committee to the College Board.  He has received the Grand Prize of the Heitland Foundation, Celle, Germany; Gold Medal Award of Distinction of the National Society of Arts and Letters; and a United States Information Agency specialist grant to the University of the Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.  He was awarded a Fulbright artist-in-residence grant to Greece and a Fulbright senior scholar award also to Greece, both in printmaking.

As senior program manager in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, David N. Levin manages Fulbright scholar programs and other exchange activities worldwide.  He also coordinates the Bureau’s diversity-related activities and does much of the Bureau’s outreach throughout the United States—particularly to colleges and universities, including minority-serving institutions, community colleges, and others.  He also serves as a speechwriter, as special projects officer for the Bureau, and as Fulbright alumni liaison.  Prior to his current position, Mr. Levin spent 15 years with the U.S. Information Agency and seven years with the U.S. Department of Education, managing a wide range of international education programs and activities.  Before joining the federal government, he served as special assistant to the director of the International Division of the American Council on Education.  Mr. Levin holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Beloit College, Wis., and a master’s degree in public administration in international affairs from American University.  He has studied, worked, and traveled throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Steven Lund has taught in the Division of Modern Languages at Arizona Western College (AWC) in Yuma since 1995.  In 2003, he became AWC’s first Fulbright scholar in its 40-year history.  As a Fulbrighter, he served as a lecturer in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) teacher training at Prešov University in Slovakia.  His other international experiences include undergraduate studies in Uruguay as a Rotary International ambassadorial scholar and stints as a U.S. State Department English teaching fellow in Chile and an English teaching specialist in the Republic of Georgia.  A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., he also holds a master’s degree in the teaching of English as a second language from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  As a community college educator, he actively promotes the various Fulbright programs among colleagues throughout the state of Arizona.

Kristjen Lundberg joined the Fulbright Association in March 2006 as director, chapter relations. Originally from Alabama, Ms. Lundberg attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., where she was an active volunteer and community service coordinator.  As an undergraduate, she studied at St. John’s College in Oxford, England, during the summer of 2001.  She received a bachelor of arts degree in 2002, majoring in English literature with a minor in economics.  She graduated magna cum laude and was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa.  Prior to joining the Fulbright Association, Ms. Lundberg held positions that focused on engaging volunteers and strengthening their community involvement.  Most recently, she served as a member of the community development team at First Book, a national children’s literacy nonprofit, supporting the development of local volunteer groups across the United States.

Charafa Jai Mansouri graduated from the Art School at Mohamed V University in Rabat in 1969 and began her career as an English as a foreign language teacher in Casablanca.  She has also been master teacher in different Moroccan high schools in Casablanca, Fez, and Marrakech.  Ms. Mansouri has been a member of the Moroccan Association of Teachers of English since its creation in 1979.  She took part in the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program in 1995-96, when she spent six weeks in Los Angeles, teaching at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. While in the United States, she accepted invitations from two other Fulbrighters, who had previously been her guests in Morocco, to gain further experience by visiting their middle and high schools in Mendocino and Menlo Park, Calif.  In 2000, Ms. Mansouri took up writing poems and stories, and her first series of short stories, Daisy Easy and Ready, was published in 2002.   These stories are written in simple language so as to be accessible to readers.  After almost four decades of devotion to his job, Ms. Mansouri was awarded a national “Wissam,” a royal decoration, with a distinction of Excellency in June 2005.

Lucy Montgomery has a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has taught in the Boston Public Schools since 2000.  She has taught courses in history and Chinese language at both the middle and high school levels.  She has lived  in China, as well as traveled and led tours for educators in China.  She served on the Quincy (Mass.) Upper School development team to define the scope and sequence for language curricula for grades six through eight and was a founding member of the seventh/eighth grade history team at New Boston Pilot Middle School in its initial two years, developing and implementing standards-based curricula.  She has developed units about South Africa and protest through music and poetry and various thematic language units.  Before entering the teaching profession, Ms. Montgomery worked at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she was the program manager for the Takemi Program in International Health and coordinated research projects on health and literacy.  She is a contributing author to papers on surveys about health and literacy published by the National Center for Adult Learning and Literacy.  She is continuing work with her colleague, Alicia Carroll, on the research and writing of a children’s book titled Malindi’s Journey, the story of a giraffe brought by African ambassadors to China with the treasure ships of Zheng He, the Chinese Muslim explorer of the 15th century.

Since 1995, Jennifer Moore has served on the faculty of the University of New Mexico School of Law, where she teaches courses in international law, international refugee law, comparative human rights, and contracts.  She has served as New Mexico State Chancellor for the International Association of Educators for World Peace since March 2003.  She became director of the Peace Studies Program of the University of New Mexico in August 2004.  She is co-author of Refugee Law and Policy, the first U.S. casebook on refugee law.  She has also written several articles on international and domestic refugee protection. After receiving her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1987, she clerked for the Office of Staff Attorneys of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and served as visiting professor at West Virginia University College of Law.  In 1991, Prof. Moore was recruited by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and served initially as associate protection officer in Conakry, Guinea, where she worked primarily with Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees (1991-93).  From 1993 to 1995, she served as associate legal officer for the UNHCR Branch Office in Washington, D.C., where she focused on the special protection needs of refugee women and children.  From 2002-03, Professor Moore served as a Fulbright senior scholar in Tanzania, where she taught international law at the University of Dar es Salaam Faculty of Law and researched refugee and human rights law and policy in Tanzania.

An executive consultant with the Rae Group, Suzanne Moyer is an entrepreneur and a former nonprofit leader with experience in international management and multi-sector partnership-building.  As part of the Rae Group, she supports CEOs and NGO and community leaders with strategic change and transformation.  She is currently serving on a Fulbright grant to research the impact of the globalization of Moroccan economic policy on the management competencies required of Moroccan entrepreneurs and executives.  Prior to joining the Rae Group, Ms. Moyer was president of AIESEC United States.  (AIESEC, a French acronym that stands for Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales or International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences, is a work-abroad exchange program founded in Europe in 1948 that has grown to over 80 countries with more than 50,000 volunteer members on 700 plus university campuses.) During her time with AIESEC, Suzanne led the creation of several new programs, including “The Salaam Program,” an international internship exchange program for U.S. and Arab students which aims to increase cultural understanding and ties among these students. She was also responsible for expanding and diversifying AIESEC’s operations into new sectors and regions of the world.  Ms. Moyer’s leadership roles have involved working in more than 15 countries and include work with private corporations, universities, non-profit organizations, and governmental entities.  She is currently active in several NGOs and serves on the Board of Directors of The High Atlas Foundation.  She speaks fluent French and conversational Arabic and is a published author on business and development in the Middle East.

Everette B. Penn served as Fulbright scholar to Egypt in 2005.  He taught courses on the American criminal justice system to undergraduate and graduate students in the College of Law of Cairo University.  He is assistant professor of criminology and cross-cultural studies at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.  He is the founding president of the Houston-South East Texas Chapter of the Fulbright Association.  His publications include articles on the value of international education, race and crime, homeland security, and service-learning.  Active in local, national, and international community organizations, he holds leadership positions in the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the Bilateral US Arab Chamber of Commerce, and the United Negro College Fund.  This summer he led a group of more than 140 students who performed a service-learning project in flood-ravaged New Orleans. The project provided thousands of hours of service and lead to the preparation of an elementary school for an on-time opening for the fall 2006 academic year.

The first woman in Nepal to earn a doctoral degree in English, Sangita Rayamajhi chose “Utopia:  A Poetics of Disillusionment” for her dissertation topic because of her personal experiences with continuing her education, marrying early, and raising a family.  She completed her intermediate studies in 1979, her bachelor’s degree in 1981, and her master’s degree in English in 1986, after having married an architect at age 16.  She received her doctoral degree in 1996.  A mother of two sons and grandmother of a toddler, she has been featured in magazines as a “young grandmother.”  Dr. Rayamajhi began teaching as assistant lecturer at Padmakanya College in 1986 and was transferred to the Central Department of English of Tribhuvan University where she taught as lecturer from 1994 to 2003 and, since 2003, as associate professor.  Besides teaching, she supervises the research work of female students who form about 10 percent of the total student population in the department.  Her personal life and her interest in the subject have made her an academic feminist, who has continued to ask questions such as, Who is the daughter of Nepal? and Can a woman rebel?, the titles of her two books published in 2001 and in 2003 respectively.   She also writes a column for The Kathmandu Post, the national daily.  She edited and published the magazine Across until she went to Pomona College of the Claremont Colleges as a Fulbright scholar in 2003 for postdoctoral work on the topic “Cultural Memories as Reflected in Dramaturgy:  Nepali and American Women’s Experiences.”  In 2006, she was elected president of the Fulbright Alumni Association of Nepal (FAAN) in the first election in the association’s history.

Thomas T. Riley was confirmed as the United States Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco on December 9, 2003, culminating almost three decades of work in international business, technology, and energy management.  Mr. Riley earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University in 1972.  He began his professional life as an associate engineer for the Boeing Company in Seattle, Wash.  After a year of service with Boeing, Mr. Riley attended Harvard Business School, where he was awarded a master’s of business administration degree in 1975.  Following graduation from Harvard, Mr. Riley spent four years overseas with TRW, based in Northern Ireland, England, and France, rising rapidly to the position of manager of European operations.  He then returned to California and co-founded General Resources Corporation, an equipment distribution company, establishing partnerships with local service companies in Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan.  Mr. Riley speaks French fluently.  He also has a strong foundation in technology, having worked in the Silicon Valley in California for the past 20 years.  He has served as the president and CEO of Unity Systems (automated building controls), Web State (online training), and most recently ActivePhoto (online digital photo services).  He was awarded a U.S. patent for an innovative energy management system.  Mr. Riley has actively donated his professional expertise through volunteering at organizations such as Bizworld, a program that teaches business principles in elementary schools, and Hope Rehabilitation Services, a charity serving those with mental disabilities. He and his wife Nancy, a tax attorney, have two daughters in college.

Rick A. Ruth is director of the Office of Policy and Evaluation of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and director of the Public Diplomacy Evaluation Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  He is a former Foreign Service Officer and career member of the U.S. Senior Executive Service.  Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he taught Russian language and literature at the University of Arizona.  During his Foreign Service career, he served in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Moscow.  He also did stints as chief of the United States Information Agency (USIA) Operations Center and as USSR country affairs officer.  He was deputy chief of staff to four directors of USIA from 1988 to 1999.  With the integration of USIA and the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Ruth became the first person to hold the position of executive assistant to the under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs (1999 to 2002).  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was the public diplomacy representative on the senior level steering committee responsible for coordinating the State Department’s response to the attack.  As director of the Office of Policy and Evaluations, Mr. Ruth is responsible for ensuring that educational and cultural programs are consistent with U.S. foreign policy.  He was tapped by Under Secretary Karen Hughes to head a new combined Public Diplomacy Evaluation Office that is responsible for the assessment of all public diplomacy programs and products.  In 2004, he established within his office the Department’s first office of alumni affairs.  He is also responsible for ECA’s annual performance plan and for its cultural heritage activities.  Mr. Ruth has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service as a Senior Executive.

A free-lance writer and public relations consultant, Linda H. Scanlan taught journalism and public relations at Norfolk (Va.) State University for 17 years. Before teaching, Ms. Scanlan wrote and edited for five daily newspapers.  In 2001, Ms. Scanlan was selected as one of the first Fulbright senior specialists in communication.  She advised the U.S. diplomatic post, the UN Mission to Kosovo, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on educational resources for a new communications graduate program at the University of Pristina, Kosovo.  In 1993-94, Ms. Scanlan was a Fulbright scholar in journalism and mass communication in Bulgaria, teaching media management and international communication to senior level students. She also participated in seminars on media ethics and management for journalists in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.  Ms. Scanlan was invited back to Bulgaria in 1998 as a United States Information Agency “journalist in residence” speaking to professionals and students on journalism and communications ethics.  She currently works on review panels for the International Research and Education Exchange Board (IREX).  Ms. Scanlan has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, a master’s degree in higher education administration from George Washington University, and a bachelor’s degree in government from Cornell University.   From 1999 to 2005, she served on the national board of the Fulbright Association and chaired both its Chapter Relations and its Advocacy and External Relations Committee.  A lifetime member of the Fulbright Association, she is a founding member and the secretary of the Association’s Southeast Virginia Chapter.

Carol B. Thompson is professor of political economy at the Northern Arizona University.  She has lived and worked in Southern Africa for over 10 years and was a Fulbright scholar in Zimbabwe in 1985.  She has done consultancies for the UNICEF, the European Union, the governments of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Oxfam, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, and other groups. Active in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement for over 25 years, she testified before the U.S. Congress about American policy toward Southern Africa and, more recently, participated in U.S. State Department forums on Zimbabwe.  Research chair of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (ACAS), she is active in a working group of nongovernmental organizations, raising questions concerning whether free trade agreements are instruments for development.  Her latest book, Biopiracy of Biodiversity–International Exchange as Enclosure co-authored with Zimbabwean agriculturalist Andrew Mushita, will soon be published by Africa World Press.  Her book critiques efforts to privatize the genetic commons and demonstrates how the Africa Union is resisting such piracy.  Offering lessons for industrial economies, she analyzes how Africa will become food secure through sustaining biodiversity, rather than through global food markets or monoculture.

Walter Verdehr and Elsa Ludwig-Verdehr are the founding members of the Verdehr Trio.  Walter was born in Gottschee, Yugoslavia, and received his first violin instruction at the Conservatory of Music in Graz, Austria.  A student at the Juilliard School, he was the first violinist to receive a doctorate there.  On a Fulbright fellowship, he studied at the Vienna Academy of Music. He was chairman of the String Department at Michigan State University School of Music, where he is professor of music and recently received the Distinguished Faculty Award.  In the United States and Europe, he has given many solo recitals, has been soloist with many orchestras, and has made solo recordings for Golden Crest Records and Crystal Records.  He performs on the ex-Stephens/Verdehr Stradivarius of 1690.  Elsa studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and at the Eastman School, from which she received a performer’s certificate and a doctoral degree in musical arts.  She has performed and lectured at many International Clarinet Congresses and for several years was a participant in the Marlboro Music Festival and touring groups. She has appeared frequently in the United States and Canada as recitalist, clinician, and soloist with orchestras.  She was awarded the Distinguished Faculty Award at Michigan State University where she is professor of music and was recently named distinguished university professor.  She spends her summers as principal clarinetist of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra.

Assistant professor of political science at Mohammed V University, Rabat, Saloua Zerhouni spent 1999-2000 on a Fulbright grant at the University of Arizona, Tucson, conducting research for her dissertation, entitled Elite and Transition in Morocco:  A Case Study of the Parliamentary Elite of the 1997-2002 Legislature.  Her dissertation focused on the ideals and realities of citizenship and political participation in Morocco with the goal of helping Morocco in its progress towards democratization through analysis of the current state of political participation and through recommendations of possible solutions.  The grant gave Ms. Zerhouni exposure to recent American theories and field research methods.  Her co-supervisors were Professors Khalid Naciri, director of Morocco’s Higher Institute of Administration (ISA) and Mark Tessler, president of the American Institute of Maghrib Studies (AIMS).   Dr. Zerhouni has also served as a research associate with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Tours

Tour Option 1:  Southern Cities
Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Ouarzazate
Day 2 (Nov. 9):  Bivouak/Zagora
Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Ouarzazate
Day 4 (Nov. 11):  Fly home

Package includes:

  • 2 nights at the Berber Palace Hotel
  • 1 night at the Bivouak Hotel
  • All transfers by private bus
  • English speaking guide
  • Excursion into the Sahara by 4×4 (night in Berber tent)
  • Dinner in the Sahara with Sahraoui Group
  • Camel ride

Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Marrakech > Ouarzazate
A long drive over the magnificent Tichka pass to arrive to Ouarzazate.  Experience the intriguing Kasbahs.  You will visit the Kasbahs of Tifeltout and then Taourirt, one of Morocco’s most impressive Kasbahs built by Glaoui.  Continue on to one of Morocco’s most spectacular fortressed cities—Ait Ben Haddou.  Then travel to Dades Gorge, considered Morocco’s prettiest, with varied plots guarded by ancient fortresses.  Next, visit Todra Gorges with its spectacular 1,800 feet deep gorge.  Dinner at your hotel.

Day 2 (Nov. 9):  Ourzazate > Zagora > Dunes > Bivouac
Drive along the road through Tagounite and stop in Tamegroute, home of the famous Koran Library with many rare books and documents dating back to the 14th century.  Then visit the Tinfou Dunes (.5 km from Tamegroute).  Continue to M’hamid for an evening full of adventure.  Travel by 4×4 to the Sahara, dine with a Sahraoui group, and spend the night in traditional Berber tents.

Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Zagora > Ouarzazate
Begin the day with a short camel ride into the Sahara to watch the sun rise over the Sahara.  Then spend the day exploring the gateway to the Moroccan desert as you travel through the lowlands and then through the mountains on the way back to Ouarzazate.

Day 4 (Nov. 11):  Ouarzazate > Casablanca > Home
Fly from Ouarzazate to Casablanca.  Depart after breakfast.  You will be transferred to the airport and assisted with customs for your return flight home.

Tour Option 2:  Imperial Cities—Fez & Rabat
Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Fez
Day 2 (Nov. 9):  Fez
Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Rabat
Day 4 (Nov. 11):  Fly home

Package includes:

  • 2 nights at Merinides Hotel (Fez)
  • 1 night at the Tour Hassan Hotel (Rabat)
  • All transfers by private bus
  • An English speaking guide
  • Excursion Meknes and the Roman ruins at Volubulis
  • Dinner in with a Moroccan family
  • All monument entrance fees

Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Marrakech > Ifrane > Fez
Depart early this morning and travel through the middle Atlas region to reach Fez.  Traveling through wooded and mountainous terrain brings us to Beni Mellal for an optional lunch.  Continue through Berber villages to the delightful ski resort of Ifrane.  End your day in Fez, the first imperial city which was built in 790 A.D. by Moulay Idris II.

Day 2 (Nov. 9):  Fez
A full day to explore Morocco’s most fascinating city and the world’s last surviving Medieval city.  Begin the day by traveling downtown to visit the King’s palace.  On the way to the palace, you will walk through the Jewish and Arab sections of the city.  Continue along the river for a panoramic view of the old town medina.  Enter the city through one of the main gates for a walking tour highlighting Karaouinine University, the oldest in the world, the Meders sa attarine, Bouanania Religious School, Najarine Fountain, and an optional lunch.  Later visit Moulay Idriss Mausoleum and a famous tannery where skins are cured and dyed in enormous vats.  There will also be time to shop for some of Fez’s famous handicrafts

Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Fez > Rabat
Leave for Meknes, driving throughout the walls and numerous gates of the city.  Visit the famous Gate of Bab el Mansour, the Shrine Mosque, the tomb of Moulay Ismail, Dar Jamai palace, and the Royal Stables, with a stop at the City of Moulay Idriss where the founder of Islam is buried. Continue on to the archaeological site of the Roman ruins at Volubilis.  Lunch on the road.  Continue to Rabat, the present capital of Morocco.  Check in to your hotel.  Afternoon tours will include walking to the bustling Medina, followed by a visit the Kasbah of the Oudays, the Great Mosque, the Hassan Tower, and the magnificent Mohammed V Mausoleum.  You will drive past the ramparts and the walls of Mechouar that encompass the royal place.  Dinner and overnight in Rabat.

Day 4 (Nov. 11):  Rabat > Casablanca > Home
Following breakfast, you will be transferred the airport and assisted with customs for your return flight home.

Tour 3:  Agadir
Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Agadir
Day 2 (Nov. 9):  Agadir
Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Agadir

Package includes:

  • 3 nights at Hotel Amadil
  • All transfers by private bus
  • An English speaking guide
  • Excursion to Essaouira
  • Breakfast and dinner daily
  • All monument entrance fees

Day 1 (Nov. 8):  Marrakech > Essaouira > Agadir
Depart in the morning for Essaouira, a picturesque port of an 800-year-old city, which shows traces of Iberian influence in its forts and towers.  We suggest you have lunch outdoors at the Chalet de la Plage—seafood dishes are highly recommended (optional meal).  Continue to Agadir, city of revival and the softness of living, sheltering in an exceptional site—one of the most beautiful bays in the world.  Agadir, enjoying an eternally moderate climate and home to hotel facilities of first order, promises you an ideal stay in any season.  Seaside resort par excellence, it is also the prelude to all your discoveries, of the visit of the back-country rich in curiosities until the adventure of the Great South.  Dinner and overnight in hotel.

Day  2 (Nov. 9):  Agadir
Spend these days at your leisure.  Enjoy the beautiful beaches and the mild climate.

Day 3 (Nov. 10):  Agadir
Optional excursions to Imouzzer.

Day 4 (Nov. 11):  Agadir > Home
Following breakfast, you will be transferred to the airport and assisted with customs for your return flight home.