Fulbright Program: U.S. Applicant Podcast
Transcript For: Jermaine Jones, Manager Sub-Saharan Africa
August 27, 2008
Jermaine Jones, Manager Sub-Saharan Africa, discusses developments in the Fulbright Program to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tony: Welcome to the Fulbright US Student
Podcast. I’m your host, Tony Claudino, with
Schuyler: Schuyler Allen, your additional host
and today we’re joined by our colleague Jermaine Jones who is going to talk to
us about applying to
Jermaine: the Middle East and North
Africa as well as Sub-Saharan Africa.
Tony: Which one do you want to start
off with first, Jermaine?
Jermaine: Just two, not that many. And I think it’s
pretty manageable. Want to flip a coin? How about Sub-Saharan Africa?
Schuyler: Sounds good.
Tony: So tell us a little bit about…
are there any particular fields of study… or are the grants pretty consistent
in Sub-Saharan Africa?
Jermaine: The grants are fairly consistent. I
think I understand your question. All fields of study, for the most part, are
encouraged and considered unless a particular country in its country summary
indicates that a particular field might be either recommended or not
recommended, or preferred or un-preferred, but generally speaking all fields
are considered for most countries.
Tony: But, it’s not a country specific
competition, right? It’s regional? Can you explain a little bit about that?
Jermaine: It’s a regional competition in the
sense that there are no individual country quotas, for instance, I can’t say
that for the upcoming ‘09-‘10 competition, that x number of grants will be
available for Senegal or Ghana, because that’s not the way that a regional
competition works. I can say that we have publicized approximately 55 grants
that we expect to offer for the Sub-Saharan African region, excluding South
Africa, for the ‘09-‘10 academic year and that those grants will be divided
ideally as equally as we can among the different countries in the region that
receive quality applications.
Schuyler: OK. I have a question right there. Are
there any countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that Fulbright would like to see more
of?
Jermaine: Good question and I can’t think of any
offhand. Well, I take that back. I know that there’s been a push by my
colleagues in Washington, DC
to get more applications going to Nigeria
and I believe that Kenya
is also somewhat of a priority country. So those are the two that come to mind.
One thing that I would say to sort of piggyback on your question, Schuyler, is
that there are certain countries that are perennial favorites in terms of being
wildly popular among different applicants. South Africa is hands down the big
one. It probably receives upwards of about 25% of all of the applications for
Sub-Saharan Africa each year. Ghana’s
a distant second, but it’s also, you know, an up and coming country. I think it
received upwards of about 50 or 60 applications each of the past couple of
years.
Schuyler: Alone?
Jermaine: Alone, exactly right. Kenya, Tanzania,
Senegal
are probably somewhere in that range as well. They’re also popular countries I
would say.
Tony: Do you think… it is the
beginning of August now so students are basically gearing up to apply or
hopefully are in the process. They’re thinking about South
Africa but they’re not really set on South Africa. Should they be
looking at other countries like you mentioned, like Nigeria
or Kenya?
Jermaine: I often tell people that they’ve
really got to apply where they think they can submit the best application. In
other words, don’t play the numbers game too much. Or don’t be too frightened
away by the statistics that they see on the website or in our brochure. So, if
they are 1 of 100 or so people applying to South Africa next year, and we
expect to offer between 8 and a dozen grants in that country for next year,
those can be daunting numbers but if your heart is set on that country and if you
really want to apply there, then go for it. If there’s any wiggle room
whatsoever in terms of your project being doable elsewhere in the region then I
often tell people, to use South
Africa as an example Tony, to consider other
countries in the Southern African region. South
Africa’s quite competitive as we just discussed but Botswana is clearly less so, Namibia is clearly less so, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, clearly less so.
Schuyler: I had a question about safety in the
region just because there’s so much… [overlapping talking] Tanzania, etc. Clearly there should
be a fit with the country and the application, that’s something we constantly
repeat to any applicant applying to Fulbright, that there should be a nice
tight fit between your project and the country that you’re doing it in. If it’s
too general, it could be done anywhere, it’s a problem. It really has to be
something specific to that country. Why it has to be done there and that’s why
the country gets chosen, but that said, let’s say I have my heart set on going
somewhere in Southern Africa and that region’s
politically unstable. What happens then?
Jermaine: Well, if a person is offered a grant
to a country, and for whatever reason the Fulbright program in that country is
suspended at some point, either before they head out or during the course of
the grant term, the Fulbright program will do what’s best to make sure that
that person is able to retain their grant, they would be given the option, more
than likely, of either coming back to the United States or staying in this
country until things cool down enough for them to either go to the country or
to resume their research in that same country. Or if things look pretty dismal
there for the long term, they’d be given option B which is to seek the
reassignment of their grant to a different country in the Sub-Saharan African
region.
Tony: And they can’t defer for a year for
example, right?
Jermaine: That is not possible.
Schuyler: There are no deferrals on Fulbright
period.
Jermaine: That’s right.
Schuyler: OK, just going back to something you
said before, quality applications. Now, there’s a lot of discussion about what
defines a quality application and certainly you mentioned the country summaries—and
those country summaries, for our listeners, are posted on our website and then
also in the Fulbright brochure, but the website is the most up to date place
where you can get that information—what defines a quality application to
Sub-Saharan Africa?
Jermaine: What a question! I have to give you a
boilerplate answer that I would give to anyone applying anywhere, quite
frankly, and that is that in my opinion the lynchpin in any successful application
is going to be the proposal. And that is hands down the most important part of
a successful application. And just to give a little bit more detail on that,
and to piggyback on one of your previous comments Schuyler, I would say that it’s
the application and the host country that are quite important. Clearly there
has to be a good fit between the application or the project and the candidate’s
ability to carry out that project successfully. But ideally, as you just
mentioned, there’s got to be a fit between the project and its relevance to the
host country. One thing I would say is that there is a common misperception
among candidates to Sub-Saharan Africa that these are service oriented grants,
in the sense that they are applying to do some sort of good work, good deed in
the host country. And while that is certainly admirable, that is no the aim of
the Fulbright program.
Tony: It’s not like the Peace Corps.
Jermaine: It’s not like the Peace Corps, it’s
not like working with something like Doctors Without Borders, or something
along those lines. Many people do projects that certainly address critical
social needs in their host country…
Tony: Like a public health project?
Jermaine: Exactly, public health projects,
economic development projects, things dealing with microfinance or HIV/AIDS,
things along those lines, but you are there really to learn much more than to
serve so you’ve got to keep that in mind. If service is a part of it then so
much the better, but you’ve really got to make the learning part, the research
part of it front and center.
Tony: Can you give us an example of
one of the grantees that are doing let’s say a public health or… I know you
have so many grantees…
Schuyler: Or even an arts project. There’ve been
some great arts projects too.
Tony: Or anything that comes to mind…
or should we just look on the website in the directory?
Jermaine: Look on the website please because I’m
drawing a blank at the moment. Sorry about that folks.
Tony: Definitely look at the website-
Jermaine: But the online directories are very
good in terms of listing all projects worldwide. Check there please.
Schuyler: I had a question about language,
because this is a question that comes up with all Fulbright grants and they are
certainly some languages spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa that are not commonly
taught in the United States. What recommendations would you give to candidates
about acquiring those languages for their projects?
Jermaine: OK, so about acquiring those languages
for their projects.
Tony: Cause their universities
obviously don’t offer the languages or where they are they can’t study them.
Schuyler: Right so how would I go about learning
Swahili?
Jermaine: Well, Swahili is not a great example
because that, of any African language, is fairly commonly taught and certainly-
Schuyler: How about Zulu?
Jermaine: Well, there’s a better one! OK, in
that case I would recommend that a student make sure first of all that their
project is commensurate with where their language abilities will be at the time
that they begin their research. In other words you don’t want to submit a
project that’s going to require an advanced level of a language that you simply
will not have proficiency in either before or during the course of the grant
term so you’ve really got to make sure you keep your project methods and goals
in line with your language abilities and where they will be. I would recommend
that candidates really make an effort to try to build in or factor in some kind
of language study or language tutorial for less commonly taught languages
during the course of the grant term. In other words they might want to include
in their project statement their intention to do language training during the
first couple of months or so of their grant term so that might be one way of
getting sort of on the ground language training in the best location to do it,
which is not much of a possibility for many of the indigenous languages.
Schuyler: So let’s say for example my project
involves doing interviews and getting my primary sources for research, I’m
obviously going to need a pretty good level of the spoken language in order to
conduct those interviews. And in that example, let’s say I live somewhere where
those languages aren’t commonly taught, where could you point me in the
direction of learning, you know, where would I go?
Jermaine: Well, you might want to just, you
know, in very generic terms, indicate in your proposal your desire, your
interest, to learn or begin acquiring the language while in the host country.
And you may also want to indicate in the proposal your intention to judiciously
use translators and interpreters, bearing in mind that you wouldn’t receive any
additional Fulbright funding to cover the salaries for these assistants.
Tony: I think language is a good issue
but I think the… I want to talk about affiliation. A lot of questions that I
get when I go onto campuses, students are like, “how do I get an affiliation?”
For Sub-Saharan Africa, can you go into the affiliation process? Cause you
know, internet could be an issue, in terms of trying to get an affiliation for
the region.
Jermaine: For better or worse, it’s up to each
candidate and/ or grantee to secure their own host institution affiliation. IIE
can certainly give them some pointers or advice as far as that goes, but
there’s really not much that we can do in terms of facilitating contact between
a candidate or a grantee and a suitable host institution in their host country.
I recognize that it can be very difficult to establish contact with
institutions in that part of the world. So I often tell students to start early
and that’s just general advice about the process in general, ideally in the
spring if not early summer because once you get into the heart of summer it can
be a downtime worldwide. Africa is no
exception to that. So definitely start early. Cast your net widely. You can
certainly try emailing, phone calls, faxes to people on the continent but think
about who you might know in the United
States, especially people who are applying
through US colleges and universities. Think about your faculty on campus who
might have connections to Sub-Saharan Africa and try getting them on board in
terms of helping you to facilitate contact with these institutions. In some
cases, certain countries list in their country summaries institutions that you
might want to look into as well. I mean, they might give more defined
parameters in terms of the names or types of institutions that you can be
affiliated with, so certainly check the country summaries as well. That’s all
that I can think of in terms of the process of affiliation.
Tony: I usually recommend the Scholar
program, that they go to cies.org—that’s the faculty or professor part of the
program, we deal with the students—and they can see a faculty member who either
has gone to the region or a visiting faculty member that’s here and there are
directories there as well.
Jermaine: That’s good advice too.
Schuyler: I would just add one thing in terms of
what Jermaine is saying and this comes straight from a Fulbrighter who did go
to Ghana.
She recommended not only start early, but once you’ve established contact,
maintain that contact. Keep it going on a regular basis. Because you don’t want
to establish some level of agreement at one point in time, let’s say you start
early and you have that letter in hand and then you get there and they’re like,
who are you? You want to maintain contact with that person and you want to get
to really sort of know them so that you can limit the amount of surprises that
you have once you’re there in country and you really know what you’re getting
yourself into because we want for you to really just enjoy and engage yourself
in the country that you’re in once you’re there.
Tony: Can they have multiple
affiliations? Like could they do a university affiliation at a local university
and a local NGO?
Schuyler: Yeah, what about multi-country
projects, for example?
Jermaine: Multi-country projects are different.
Multiple affiliation question first: yes it certainly is possible to have an
affiliation with more than one institution in the host country. It’s not
necessarily preferred though and it’s certainly not the norm. Most people are
generally fine with just one institution serving as their affiliate. I don’t
think there’s really any advantage to having more than one unless your project absolutely
demands it. And certainly don’t think that the more the better in terms of
affiliations because in a lot of cases the review committees might view having
2, 3, 4 extraneous affiliations as being a sign of stretching oneself too thin.
And that’s a sin that I would not recommend anyone commit. I wouldn’t recommend
any sins but you certainly don’t want to put that seed in the review
committee’s minds.
And in terms of the
multi-country question, multi country applications are a possibility, with the
exception of South Africa
in the Sub-Saharan African region. I have to say though that they really aren’t
terribly encouraged, in my opinion for a couple of reasons. The main one being
that they really do involve a lot more work on the part of the applicant.
Namely it’s up to each candidate to, as we talked about before, to secure
affiliations in each country to which they apply. That can certainly be tough
enough with just one country. When you tack on a second or a third country it
can just be that much more difficult. There are also countries that require the
student to take care of any research permits or clearances as well. These are
usually taken care of after a person’s been formally offered a grant. But
again, they can be time consuming, and there can be money involved. And again
it can be tough to deal with one country, add on a second or a third and it’s
just that much more difficult. The other strike that I see against going the
multi country route is that there’s the possibility that if a person is
recommended by the US based committees onto the country round of the screening,
and if one country of a multi-country application says no, if they decline or
reject that application, there’s the possibility, not a certainly, but a
possibility that that one rejection can throw a serious wrench into the overall
works of being able to be offered a grant at all. So, again, they’re a
possibility, multi-country grants, but I think there are some serious reasons
for people to give pause before they jump into going the multi-country route.
Schuyler: And it’s a feasibility issue too. I
mean, you want to think about what you can conceivably do within about a nine
month frame of time. Ten months. Seriously, what can you do? You cannot necessarily
find a cure for AIDS within that 10 months; you might, but then again you might
not. And so you want to be as clear as possible in your proposal about what
you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it within that time frame.
Jermaine: That’s exactly right. I would just say
one more thing as far as that goes and that’s that this Fulbright program as
it’s probably been discussed and written elsewhere really is geared towards
cultural immersion and cultural exchange and the best way to do that is to
really immerse yourself in one culture in one country for the full grant
duration and you’re really diluting things when you start dividing up a ten
month grant between 2 or 3 different countries. It’s really best to focus on just
one setting for the full grant duration.
Tony: So to wrap up Sub-Saharan
Africa, it all comes down to the proposal in general. One of the things you’re
mentioning is the proposal is key to a successful application.
Jermaine: The proposal is certainly key. A lot
of people really get their boxers in a twist when they aren’t able to get an
affiliation letter and include it with their applications. I often tell people
that it’s not a required part of the application, the affiliation letter, but
it’s certainly the kind of thing that can help your chances. So I would say try
like the dickens between now and the October application deadline to get that
letter so you can include it with your application. If the deadline approaches
and you don’t have that letter, please do not let that stop you from applying, submitting
your application. You can always send it in a little bit after the application
deadline. That’s not encouraged, but it’s certainly possible and I should say
that there have been cases, many cases in fact, where people have been
recommended and ultimately offered grants without having that affiliation
letter on file.
Schuyler: Good to know.
Tony: Great, great. Alright, well
thank you Jermaine for this great info on Sub-Saharan Africa.
Schuyler: Thank you so much. This has been
incredibly informative.
Tony: Look forward to the next podcast
where we’ll talk about the Middle East and North Africa.
Jermaine: Sure, sure.
Tony: Great.
Jermaine: If not the playoffs! Sorry!
[laughter]
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