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Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast

Transcript For: Africa Alumni Roundtable 2008 - Qustions and Answers

Africa Alumni Roundtable 2008. Alumni and Jermaine Jones take questions from the audience.

Questions &Answers

Jermaine: Now is the time for you folks in the audience to ask your questions. I am going to start in New York and work our way west. So if there are any questions that folks here in New York have, please come to the microphone in the center aisle.

Student: Was that incorporated into your doctoral dissertation research or was it just something that gave you good experience to doing a separate project?

Fulbright #1: Well, I used the Fulbright on the one to hand to supplement a larger research agenda, so I actually spent 4 months in England right before I went to Nigeria for my archives. Because when you’re doing work on former colonial areas, a lot of the archives are in places like London or Paris. And so, I did 4 months before I went into the field, and 8 months in the field. I actually applied to the Fulbright twice. So the first time I applied, I didn’t realize that the affiliation process was as crazy as it was. It really took a lot of time. And the first time I applied, when I was trying to get the affiliation process started, I actually went to Nigeria for a couple of weeks, just to see the lay of the land, get a sense of where I wanted to go. Precisely because I was doing work in the Niger delta, or wanted to work in Niger delta, I needed to get a really good sense of what it was I was going to do. Because I knew that it was going to be difficult to persuade the Fulbright committee to let me go to a place that was quite difficult and dangerous, as the media puts it. I also did a whole summer in England doing archival work there. So most of my archive work was outside of Nigeria, and most of my fieldwork was done when I did my Fulbright. And so I focused most of my energy with the Fulbright doing the actual fieldwork and did some archival work in Nigeria too. And I had already sort of devised my dissertation project before doing the Fulbright. So I think it would be different if I was using the Fulbright to sort of devise a project or… I think other people who did a Fulbright before trying to make a decision to go to graduate school I think would be a different experience. And I wouldn’t think that that year would be enough for a dissertation project in and of itself. They’d probably have to go back to the field and actually carry out formal field research. But for me, it was formal field research. I used the Fulbright to sort of help me do that in a way.

Fulbright #2: Before I’d even gotten the Fulbright, I was already in the process of collecting my data and I’d received funding from another source. So I was already on the ground, starting to collect data. So I defended my dissertation proposal maybe 6 months or so before I applied for Fulbright so I was already set on my dissertation idea. And I was desperately seeking money to pay for this because I knew it was going to cost me tens of thousands of dollars to do this. Luckily Fulbright came through. Well I think having already done the dissertation proposal, it actually made it easier for me to put together my application for Fulbright and other potential funders. I just had to tweak my dissertation proposal to meet whatever expectations were expected of me in the application for, let’s say, NSF or National Institute of Justice or Fulbright or whomever I was seeking money from. So I was already on the ground collecting data when Fulbright came through.

Student: Hello, my name is Isaac. I’m an undergraduate at New York University as well. My question is, when… I’ve heard different things, so I’m curious to hear from our panelists. When did you hear that you had actually received the Fulbright officially? At what point in the year?

Fulbright: I think that for each program, each country it’s different, it varies because there’s a trickling in effect that I believe Fulbright is now trying to remedy. But, you can hear about, I mean your initial…because of course there are two different stages, right? You hear probably about your first stage, that you’ve been pushed through to the next round around, I want to say, January or so. And you can actually start hearing about your acceptances as early as February, but that does depend on the country. Or March or some thing like that. But it does depend on the country to which you are applying because you have to be accepted not only by the United States but also by the country to which you are applying. So me personally I believe I found out in April sometime, but you can also find out I think in as late as September I want to say. Not as late as September? Well, May or June. I found out in April.

Student: You mentioned that you applied at large even though you were a student and I was just wondering why you chose to apply at large if you were a student at an institution.

Fulbright: Because I… I forget her name at the grad center who handles Fulbright… I didn’t have all my stuff put together yet and she wasn’t too thrilled.

Student: So get my stuff pulled together, that’s the…

Fulbright: So get your stuff pulled together! So I just decided… I said, ok fine whatever. I just took a chance and it worked out obviously.

Student: Does Fulbright have a preference? I mean it sounds like…

Jermaine: We very strongly recommend that people who are enrolled in a U.S. college or university by the October deadline apply through their school. The main reason is that it really benefits you as the candidate because you have that extra level of advising through your campus Fulbright program advisor as well as the on campus interview to make your application better. And in lot of cases if the campus interview goes very well, the campus committee evaluation form can serve as a de facto fourth letter of recommendation. The one drawback is that the campus deadline is usually about a month or so earlier than the IIE deadline so that gives you less time to work on it and to complete it all. But again I think it’s more than offset by the advantages that I just mentioned.

Student: You use this word, that the affiliation process was “crazy,” and if you could describe that a little bit?

Fulbright: Well, I think it differs, obviously, from country to country. And as I think one of our roundtable panelists has also indicated people may have email addresses or telephone numbers that, you know, may not necessarily be the best way to communicate with people. And I found out the hard way because I was actually I went a slightly different route than most Fulbrighters who go to Nigeria. I actually went and tried to affiliate with a university that did not have, historically, a Fulbright connection. They had Fulbrighters, but they were professors. And so, most people went through the University of Ibadan and I decided, well that’s not where my field is. My field is in the delta so I looked for a federal university closer. And so, it really… I’d realized I really physically had to go there and actually meet professors that I would eventually work with to make the affiliation. Phone calls were a little bit difficult in the interim, keeping up that affiliation status. Because I think once you make the affiliation, it’s really important to cultivate a relationship prior to arriving so that it really facilitates your landing and how you enter the field which I think is critical. How you enter really determines, sort of your mindset and sort of setting up for the rest of your experience there. So for me it was a little bit crazy in that sense. I took certain things for granted that I shouldn’t have, which was communication, especially in a place like Nigeria which, communication generally is easy, in the place that I was looking at, in the delta, it’s not as easy as in Lagos or Abuja, the main epicenters in Nigeria. In other countries it might be easier or more difficult than what I had.

Student: One quick other question: for those of you who are using your data for your dissertations, I know you already defended your proposal before going, did you go through the IRB process, use of human subjects prior to… I mean, how did you fit that process in with your home institution, with your work there?

Fulbrighter: I started the IRB process, but I didn’t at the time… before I went, before I even started the proposal, I realized that the people that I would be potentially interviewing would be dead. So, I didn’t have to do that. I did interview, but the use of my interviews was not as oral history so I was able to bypass it that way, but I’m sure others…

Fulbrighter: The dreaded IRB. I cleared IRB before, or just after the dissertation, the proposal defense. And again I had to have that clearance for other funders. So IRB, for dissertations, you have to have it, especially grad center.

Student: Particularly San Francisco, I know you worked with women and talking to them, I don’t know if you can hear me… so you were saying you were using some of your research for your dissertation. Did you clear IRB before you did that, or you were able to do it some other way?

Fulbrighter: Well, I didn’t even know what that was when I was in the UAE and let me just say thank god there was a University of Michigan professor there on a Fulbright who basically helped me through every step of the way. I wasn’t associated with a university in the United States and actually it kind of gets sticky because I ended up working with the government of the UAE, and they actually… I went through formalized forums to do everything. They have these judges sign things, the interviewees, and no one actually really cared so … and by no one actually cared I mean, they were like “Oh, these forms, they don’t matter here, you’re working with the government and they all have to do it anyways.” So ethically, I probably won’t end up publishing what I originally researched on, and I will go back. But yes, I was winging it.

I don’t know if that helps you. It really depends on a lot of the government; if you work for a government organization you’re going to get really interesting ethical questions when it comes to research because I’ve had enough powerful people behind me where all the judges felt that they had to respond to interviews and things like that. It gets tricky, let’s put it that way.

Student: My name is xxx, I’m an NYU alum. The question is for anyone, and the question is: is there an expected or typical relationship between the embassies and program directors in your study, what is it like? Do you know what I mean? Is there… what I mean to say is, is there an expectation of how often one meets with an embassy or when you go about that or… maybe you can speak about your experience.

Fulbrighter: I think that this is another very country dependent question, and one thing you may find in a country like Jordan where that your interactions are limited primarily to the Fulbright commission, where the Fulbright commission really has most of the say over the policies and regulations of the grant, you’re probably going to have very, very limited interaction with the embassy. If you are in a country without a Fulbright commission, like Bahrain for instance, than it may be the case that you have more interaction. But usually more for things like security, [can’t understand this part], some of the cultural briefings that you might expect in the beginning of your Fulbright. But, at least anecdotally, from what I’ve heard from other Fulbrighters, the embassy doesn’t usually play a very significant role in the day to day research. Now that may be different in certain countries, it may be the case that certain cultural affairs officers play a more active role, seminars and sessions for the students, but at least, as far as I have it, your host affiliation is going to play a much more significant role than the U.S. embassy.

Fulbrighter: I’ll just speak to this a little bit too because I think Syria is a really unique case. There isn’t a bilateral commission there so there was a lot of one on one interaction with the cultural affairs officer. We actually had check writing privileges at the embassy at the time because the banking system wasn’t set up for us to be able to get stipends through a bank or ATM machines. We had involvement- we were taken for example, it was mandatory for us to get an AIDS test to get residency in the country and we were taken by the embassy to do that. So we had a lot more involvement with the embassy and with the cultural affairs officer and… So I think it varies from country to country and that’s one example where you will see the embassy folks more than you would in Jordan for example.

Student: Hi, I’m Nick. I’m a Yale alum. I was curious about the final product, or whatever that might be, and kind of how it works into the arc of your time abroad. And I’m wondering especially if, I don’t know if there were any visual components in your research, but especially if that’s part of it, is there a way to get funding to help specifically with that or is there any assistance in creating some dialog around that when you’re wrapping up your project.

Jermaine: I’m afraid not, in terms of the funding part of your question. U.S. Student Fulbright grants are really geared towards helping the grantee with their travel to and from the host country at the beginning and end of the grant term, obviously, as well as with their basic living expenses in the host country—food, lodging, and what not—and in some cases there’s a modest research allowance built into the grant as well. So there’s really not much that we can provide if anything, quite frankly, in terms of helping out with any sort of post-grant activities that you might want to have in terms of… I’m not sure what you have in mind, but we really don’t provide anything in terms of helping you sort of put things together, or finalize things after the grant term ends.

Fulbrighter: I did speak with an artist who… not an artist, a filmmaker, who went to Mongolia actually, and as much as she didn’t get, Fulbright didn’t take her through the final product, the Fulbright has helped her actually apply for other grants that she’s now been able to use to go back and do the editing and things like that. So even though the Fulbright isn’t directly responsible for finishing a project, especially for artists, I know I have another friend who is a dancer who went on a Fulbright project. It heightens their ability to get other sources of funding. So I think on the one hand you may go for the experience itself, you know bring all your equipment and do all your research, which we all do, regardless of whether you’re doing the arts or an academic project. But often the Fulbright leads to other experiences, and I found that even as an academic that getting a Fulbright has opened up several other doors that I don’t think would have been as easy to be open if I didn’t do it.

Fulbrighter: I’d just like to comment. In Morocco the commission actually has a deadline set for you for a final product. They have annual [?] conferences in which you actually, you and your advisor, have to present for an hour, an hour per person on your project and you also have to submit a final paper. So for me, I was able to submit a paper, a completed paper, start to finish, but I also was able to compile some of my interviews, translate and transcribe some of my interviews into some thing of a final product. I was really lucky in that my commission set these deadlines for me so I could at least have some sort of finale as I came out of the country.

Fulbrighter: I just want to speak briefly, I don’t have specifics, but I know, I think it was last year or two years ago there was a professor in Los Angeles who did interviews and documentary work in Syria and it has now become a documentary and has shown in a number of festivals and there was an article about her and the documentary in the New York Times in the last couple of months. So certainly in terms of final products there are visual things that have come out of Syria and other places in the Middle East, not just papers, which is what I ended up writing at the end of it, so.

Student: Hi, my name is Jeremy. I’m applying at large I think because I’m a musician and a music educator and my question is: I’m going to apply to Ghana and I’m interested in partnering with community based music education type organization but also just studying music for my own sake, and I’m wondering if anybody can talk about the benefits and the drawbacks of having more than one partnering organization, wherever.

Fulbrighter: I actually had a Fulbright cohort in my year who went to Ghana as a dancer, and she… I mean I don’t even think this is even just for artists, but I think it is often to your benefit to have more than one institution that you partner with, partially because when you get there things may change with your relationship with one institution or another. But, different institutions give you different perspectives on what you’re doing there, and can help you sort of craft and re-craft what it is that you’re doing and re-craft your experience itself. So, as an artist I think that’s critical to have more than one institution that you’re partnering with just to be able to get your project off the ground and then also to get different perspectives. Because often, the people that you start with may not be the people you end with in your experience. But I’m sure other people may have something to say about this.

Student: So it’s almost like a plan B?

Fulbrighter: Not necessarily, I think you can go in with several options and not necessarily have “this is my main option” vs. “these are my secondary options” but I know that my friend had had an institutional affiliation with a university but actually worked with community dance groups in the area that she was based, and they were not mutually exclusive. She worked in different capacities with all of them to make her project work, in a way. So I would see it more that way than having a Plan A, B, C—that kind of thing.

Fulbrighter: One thing to consider is the difference between the official affiliation and your unofficial affiliations. I mean, we were talking about officially how many organizations you’re going to try to get the letter and the level of commitment from that you would have for an official. Of course, especially if you don’t have a chance to visit the country first, it’s a difficult thing often to acquire that letter in your hand that says we’re going to host you in this manner, shape, and form. So, it may be the case that you have an official affiliation and then you’ve got a list of 3, 4 organizations that you’d like to work with because they’re working on the same kind of issues and when you get to the country you’re actually working with all of them. So, it can become a much more fluid, loose thing than “this is my affiliation, these are the only people I work with.” In the case of Jordan, it was actually the commission that assigned the affiliation for us so I did not do the legwork in advance of finding an official host. On the other hand, I put in my application all the different individuals and organizations that I’d identified as resources. Once in the country, it really became the case that I would check in with my official affiliate from time to time, but most of the day to day stuff was done with other people who were advising me. So there are many different ways to approach it.

Fulbrighter: In South Africa I had two affiliations. Quickly, one of them lost interest. I think partly this was because… I don’t know if this is going to affect your work, but the work that I was doing was quite sensitive, and people seemed to be quite uncomfortable with what I was doing when they found out what exactly I was looking at. So the one affiliation just stopped all communication with me. And before this happened there were comments made that they were somewhat uncomfortable that I might jeopardize their relationship with this other organization. So luckily I had another affiliation to carry me through.

Student: I’m Kenya, Columbia Graduate School Alum and I will be applying at large. My question is: is it advisable to enroll in coursework in the host country university that you’re planning to do research with?

Jermaine: Not necessarily, depending on your degree level. This is sort of a program wide, world wide policy, a recommendation I should say as far as the Fulbright program is concerned. We often recommend that candidates applying at the bachelors level incorporate some kind of coursework into their overall project. In other words they might have an independent research project that they decide to complement in some way with a course of study at a college or university in the host country. Our reasons for recommending that for people at that degree level is that it’s something that can provide some structure for them. They may not have enough academic preparation relative to those at the MA or PhD level to really engage in full bore, independent field research without any kind of additional in country preparation as well as any structure that courses at a university might provide. So, again, someone at your level, at the graduate level, that’s really up to you. You wouldn’t need to incorporate coursework, but if you were a younger candidate at the BA level then you might certainly want to consider it.

Student: Hello everyone. Columbia Graduate Alumni. I had a question about the host affiliation letter. I’m planning to apply for a project in Ghana, and pretty much will be all over the country. So could I just get an affiliation letter with one institution and then have them connect with the other universities there, or get a formal affiliation letter with all the other institutions?

Jermaine: One affiliation and one affiliation letter is generally sufficient for most people. And I would actually say just to piggyback on the last gentleman’s question that overloading your application with too many affiliations could actually be the kiss of death in some respects because it might seem that you’re stretching yourself too thin and it might lead to questions of feasibility or infeasibility among the review committees. But to your question specifically, you might really want to focus on getting one letter from the organization or university that you plan on working with most closely or most in depth during your grant term. If you’re able to get letters from the other universities, so much the better. Again, don’t overdo it though. Focus on the principle or your home base institution.