Retired Fulbright Scholar

Did you know?

That Fulbright Scholar appointments are open to retired faculty? One does not have to be fully employed, nor really even a faculty member at all, to apply for and receive a Fulbright Scholar/Teaching or Research appointment abroad.

I am now in Warsaw, Poland as a Fulbright Scholar for the Spring 2013 term (I/we never even wanted to consider a full year away) at the Institute for Social Science and Humanities, a private university that has the largest psychology enrollment in the whole country.

The important factor in getting a Fulbright appointment, so far as I have discovered, is having a very strong invitation from a proposed host program and selecting a host in a country that is not too "world popular" to visit. I had originally applied with my first choice being Frankfurt, Germany and also had a solid invitation there, but did not make even the "first cut" for Germany on the U.S. selection side. My second choice was the program here in Warsaw, so the following year, I made that my first choice, and still did not get an appointment, BUT I discovered that my proposed host program had then gotten an "inquiry letter" from the Polish Fulbright program about "how they would use a Fulbright person." Applying again the following year led to my selection and appointment here. The program that I am serving in here in Warsaw offers the whole of their psychology instruction in English to a subset of their students who want a totally "international experience." I have students in my courses from Poland, from all over Europe, and about a third from…China.

I might note that my connections in both Frankfurt and here in Warsaw came about from participating in an international conference in Europe where I met and spoke extensively with academics from both the University of Frankfurt psychology program and the one here in Warsaw.

And such appointments, as perhaps some of our colleagues know, are wonderful opportunities to come to more deeply know a culture and to appreciate the nuances in how a discipline is examined from another perspective.

Under the Fulbright Program support, the travel expenses for both my wife and I were fully covered ($4000 total), there is a further significant cash payment ($1500) for "transition expenses," and I get a senior scholar monthly deposit back into my US bank for living ($2900) and rental expenses ($600) and a supplement ($200) for living expenses for my wife each month. Further, since I am actually teaching courses within the regular academic curriculum at my host university, the university is also paying me a monthly salary that is at the very highest level for their professors ($1600).

These monthly stipends from the Fulbright Commission would be the same for an appointee in France or Germany, but here in Warsaw we can easily live completely on my monthly salary from my host university, since living costs for food, etc. in Eastern Europe are generally much less than the rest of Europe. And as a 65+ year old, I get a $17 travel pass good for a year on all metropolitan transit systems as a further example of the economies of this area. We have a comfortable two bedroom fully furnished apartment with wireless internet and TV service, including many channels in English, and we are served by more than a half-dozen restaurants within two blocks of the building, for a grand monthly rent of about $930.

In summary, we are enjoying coming to appreciate how Poland is transitioning into a Western economy and culture after years as a Communist satellite. Also, interacting with this international student population is a wonderful "capstone experience" in a life journey as an academic.

George Parrott
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