PULLMAN, Wash. — International business and marketing professor Jim McCullough, director of the International Business Institute at Washington State University, will soon travel to Cambodia as one of the first Fulbright Senior Specialists to represent America overseas.
His assignment will take him to the National Institute of Management in Phnom Penh. He will spend three weeks assisting with a systematic review and restructuring of the undergraduate business curricula that includes the major fields of management, commerce and accounting, and tourism management. It is McCullough’s fifth trip to Cambodia.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to work with Rector Iv Thong and the National Institute of Management,” says McCullough. “The rector visited Washington State University in 1994 when his institute was rebuilding from the Khmer Rouge period. At that time physical and human resources were seriously lacking, and we helped with the development planning process.”
“Now, there are 10,000 students at NIM with several new buildings and young, new faculty. They are considering international accreditation for their curriculum and I will be helping with that ambitious project,” McCullough says.
The Fulbright Senior Specialist program is only about a year old. It is designed to complement the 55-year-old Fulbright Scholar Program which sends U.S. academics and professionals to 140 countries to teach and research for terms ranging from three months to an academic year.
The Fulbright Senior Specialist program provides shorter term grants, typically of two to six weeks, and is aimed to increase the number of people who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright. Grantees can undertake a broader range of activities than typically available to Fulbright Scholars, like conducting teacher training, developing and assessing curricula or educational materials, leading seminars and workshops, and conducting needs assessments and survey research.
McCullough is just the third Fulbright Senior Specialist to be named from WSU. However, he has twice been a Fulbright Scholar. In 1997, he taught at Maejo University in Thailand, and in 1982, he went to the African Congo as part of the program.
He is one of seven professors in the WSU College of Business and Economics to have been a Fulbright Scholar, but the first to be named a senior specialist. According to the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (which administers the Fulbright programs), 32 from WSU have been Fulbright Scholars (some more than once), and 23 international scholars have come to WSU in the past decade.
McCullough joined WSU in 1984 and is the former chair of the Department of Marketing. Since 1998, he has been the director of the International Business Institute. Its programs are characterized by outstanding teaching, strong scholarly research on international topics, and top-quality personal development opportunities for students and faculty. McCullough’s own research expertise involves examining what strategic approaches firms should take to improve their chances of success in emerging markets.
An innovator, McCullough guided the institute in launching the first Vietnam-U.S. MBA program in conjunction with National Economics University of Hanoi. Under his leadership, the institute has developed a variety of teaching and exchange programs with top business colleges in France, Thailand and China. It also began a doctoral program in international business in 1999 and hosts several programs each year for international academics and executives seeking a certificate in American business studies.
