St. John's College Professor Receives Fulbright Award

Jamaica, NY - Dr. Konrad Tuchscherer, Assistant Professor of History at St. John's University, New York, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research in Cameroon during the 2003-2004 academic year, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Tuchscherer, a specialist in African history and languages in St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Studies (one of the six schools and colleges that comprise St. John's University), will conduct fieldwork on vanishing African alphabets in the western grassfield region of Cameroon. In 1999, Tuchscherer discovered the characters of an extinct writing system known as "Bagam.'

Tuchscherer is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the 2003-2004 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 57 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or done research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the U.S. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Among thousands of prominent Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corporation.

For further information about the Fulbright Scholar Program, please contact Kirsten Bermingham, communications specialist, Council for International Exchange of Scholars at 202-686-7869 or at kbermingham@cies.iie.org. For more information on St. John's University, please contact Jody Fisher, Director of Media Relations, at 718-990-6185 or at fisherjo@stjohns.edu.