Fulbright recipients welcomed to WSU

Video By Matt Haugen, WSU News
 
PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University is host to the largest Fulbright contingent that anyone can remember, and plans are under way to make sure their experience here is memorable – for them and the rest of the WSU community.
Not only is WSU creating a Fulbright Academy to support Fulbright-related activities, but Fulbright international student scholars are creating their own group.
Both plans were unveiled at a reception last week to welcome WSU’s largest Fulbright contingent. Sarah Humphreys, a student scholar from New Zealand, is in her second year of study at WSU.
“This last year has been one of the best years of my life,” she said.
 
Although she met several other Fulbright scholars last year, she was overwhelmed to discover that this year WSU was hosting more than 40 Fulbright recipients. A student organization, she said, would allow students to “give something back to this wonderful institution that has taken us in and given us so much.”
Nineteen new Fulbright international student scholars arrived at WSU this fall, along with five Fulbright visiting faculty scholars, joining 21 Fulbright students already enrolled. Most are on the Pullman campus, but Fulbright students are also in WSU Tri-Cities, WSU Spokane and at the Prosser research center.
 
The students are from 26 different countries and every continent except Antarctica. They are earning both master’s degrees and doctorate degrees in 28 different disciplines, from agricultural economics to literature to veterinary science.
At a reception on Thursday in the Honors College lounge, Howard Grimes, vice president of research and dean of the Graduate School, welcomed the Fulbright scholars and thanked them for coming to WSU.
“The perspectives that you bring from your home countries increase the value of everything we do here at WSU,” he said.
Fulbright recipients are among more than 40,000 people participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright program has provided 300,000 students, faculty members, teacher, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research with colleagues from other nations, furthering the Fulbright vision of finding peaceful solutions to problems of international concern.