Fulbrights aren’t just for students.
Jill Chonody, associate professor of social work in the College of Health Sciences, will share her special skills with colleagues at the Vietnam Women’s Academy in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Chonody will spend six weeks lecturing, conducting workshops, helping to develop courses and curricula and teaching both instructors and students as a Fulbright specialist.
The organization’s program includes the “scholars” section, through which “student Fulbrighters” travel outside the United States to study and conduct research, and a variety of focused fellowships. There are also the specialists.
Started in 2001 by the U.S. Department of State, the Fulbright specialists feature matches proven professors with learning organizations in dozens of countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe. This is Chonody’s second tour of duty through the specialists pool; she visited Sweden as a specialist in 2019.
Because the Women’s Academy is a relatively new institution building on earlier training programs in the country, and given the dearth of opportunities for many to hear from traveling experts during the pandemic, Chonody hopes to be able to make a sizable impact with faculty members abroad and the organization itself. She expects to be working in areas that she has occupied and explored throughout her career, including evidence-based practice, aging, gay and lesbian populations, loneliness and gendered violence, among them.