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Transcript For: Interview with Jody Dudderar on applications to the Western Hemisphere

Valerie and Tony discuss applications to the Western Hemisphere with Jody Dudderar.

Tony and Valerie interview Jody Dudderar (Western Hemisphere)

Tony: Welcome to the Fulbright US Student podcast. We’re your hosts,

Valerie: Valerie Hymas, Program Manager for US Student Fulbright Programs Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia.

Tony: Too long, too long.

Valerie: I know.

Tony: Tony Claudino, I’m Director of the Student Outreach. This podcast we’ll be talking to Jody Dudderar, who’s the Assistant Director for theFulbright US Student Program and responsible for the Western Hemisphere. Jody, thank you for coming.

Jody: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Tony: Did I butcher your title as well? I hope not.

Jody No, you did a fine job with my title, thank you Tony.

Tony: Great.

Valerie: So Jody, what countries are within the Western Hemisphere? Please define that for us.

Jody: Thank you, I would love to. Western hemisphere consists of Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and all of South America. However I am going to focus my comments on Canada, Mexico, and South America since my colleague Joe Livingston works with Central America and the Caribbean.

Valerie: Oh yea, we had him on interview last week. So Jody, about how many awards are offered within each of these countries within your region?

Jody: Well, Canada has between 15 and 18 awards every year, Mexico has up to 30, a total of 30 awards and I’ll talk a little bit later about some of the interesting things that go on in Mexico. And then for South America, we have 113 non-ETA, non English teaching assistantship grants, and about 38 English teaching assistantship grants.

Valerie: Is that a regional based program [or is it an individual country]?

Jody: No, these are individual countries. South America is an individual country program.

Tony: How would you craft a successful application for the Western hemisphere?

Jody: I think the first thing that students need to do when they’re considering a particular country is to look at the individual country summary. Because there are some differences between the different countries in terms of affiliation requirements, the kind of organizations they would like students to work with. Also I would like to point out, and you see this a lot in South America, they have a preference for doctoral level students, however this does not mean that BA students are not welcome. In fact, BA students receive grants, that would be the recent graduates and MA candidates, receive grants probably in the same proportion as doctoral level students. What it means is these countries are looking for students who can work independently, who are self-starters. So it’s more of a level of experience rather than a degree level that they’re looking for in South America, and Mexico and Canada are similar.

Valerie: There are a lot of English teaching assistantship opportunities in South America, is there anything in particular about those programs that stands out, that is different from other ETA programs in other countries, or just even within the western hemisphere region.

Jody: Yea, the South America ETA programs are new. They’ve been around for 4 years, we now have them in 5 countries Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. The way they’re set up is quite different depending on the country. For example in Argentina and Chile, they’re all based at English teaching institutes where they’re training host country students to become teachers of English in their country. In Brazil they’re based at English language institutes, bi-national centers, same with Venezuela and in Uruguay we have a very unique program. And it is particularly well suited to people who are becoming interested in teaching because they will both be teaching in elementary schools, and in English language institutes. It’s a very highly structured program, and as I said, it’s particularly well suited to individuals who have not really formalized their teaching credentials that are interested in that kind of activity.

Tony: And you mentioned the bi-national centers?

Jody: The bi-national center is something unique to Latin America, and they’re centers that are associated, loosely, with the US embassy and their purpose is to increase awareness of the United States in that host country. It’s bi-national in that it’s host country and the US. And these centers offer a whole range of activities, such as English language courses, courses on US culture, and so the students who are placed in the bi-national centers, and this is in Brazil and Venezuela again, are very much community based ETAs. It is somewhat different.

Valerie: Sounds great

Tony: Great. Jody, can you tell us a little bit about any special opportunities that exist in this world region?

Jody: Sure. Other than the ETA program, I think Mexico offers a couple of very unique opportunities. First, they have the bi-national business program, and this is a full time business internship with a Mexican company. They are placed by the commission in Mexico. In addition to the internship work that they do with the company, they also take two courses at a business institute either in Monterrey or in Mexico City, so they’re advancing their graduate level international business study as well. It’s an opportunity that’s ideally suited to recent graduates who have some business internship experience, or to people who’ve completed masters level programs in either law, public affairs, or in business.

Tony: So, the other question is language. How good does their Spanish have to be in order to participate in this program?

Jody: In the bi-national business program, they have to be highly proficient. I would say not fluent, but highly proficient, because their courses are going to be taught in Spanish, and the work that they do for the Mexican company is going to be conducted in Spanish. That’s not necessarily the case with all of the grants in Mexico. If they’re doing a research grant, it’s generally the language proficiency is the same as it is for the rest of Latin America, which is the equivalent of two years of college level study.

Valerie: So that’s true throughout Latin America, South America. What about Brazil?

Jody: More and more we’re seeing students coming to the program that have adequate levels of Portuguese. However a student who has studied Spanish, again to a high intermediate or advanced level, but who’s never studied Portuguese, may be qualified for a grant to Brazil if they start Portuguese study fairly soon. There’s a lot of similarities between the two languages. But we still encourage students to Brazil to have begun Portuguese study, even if they have a strong Spanish background.

Valerie: My understanding is there are a number of indigenous languages, like Quechua, etc. Do you ever have grantees that work with those groups, that require some additional language skills?

Jody: All the time. Quechua, Mara in Bolivia. Many of our advanced students, if they’re graduate level students, they will have studied these languages in other capacities, but we’re finding more and more recent graduates who wish to work with these communities, and they are beginning the language study either in a self-study situation or they may have acquired it through an undergraduate study abroad experience. The important thing about indigenous languages is if they’re doing a project where they really need to have the language skills, they need to discuss how they’re going to acquire them, either prior to going down, or simultaneously as they begin their project. So that the younger students might go down without the skills, but they’ve designed their project so that the first several months they’ll be engaged in Quechua language study as they prepare or do background work for their project and then they’ll get involved with their project with that community later on in their degree. So it should not be a deterrent if they do not have the language, the student just needs to be very creative in how they frame and how they outline their project.

Tony: Making sure it’s a feasible project.

Jody: Exactly. Making sure it’s feasible.

Tony: OK. Jody, can you tell us some trends in the Western Hemisphere that you want to …

Valerie: any fields of study that tend to be…

Jody: We’re seeing a lot of activity in public health in South America. We’re seeing a lot of interest in delivery of medical services in Canada, because of this country’s interest in universal health care, Canada has some really important models in that area, so we’re seeing projects in that way. Economic development in Latin America is a hot topic. But I do want to emphasize, all fields of study are welcome; we welcome artists, musicians, people in the humanities, as well as people in the social sciences. It’s not all about anthropology.

Tony: Or international relations.

Jody: Or international relations, yes.

Valerie: I think that sums it up. Thank you for coming in and talking to us today about the Western Hemisphere program.