IWU Professor to Help Choose Fulbright Scholars
By Alan Miller
7/19/05

An Indiana Wesleyan University professor who has received two Fulbright awards has accepted an opportunity to help choose scholars who will follow in his footsteps.

Dr. Michael Boivin, who has taught psychology at IWU since1996, has been asked to serve on a committee that will review Fulbright applications for the African Regional Research Program and for East Africa.

"I assume I was chosen because I am familiar with the Fulbright process. I've been through it enough," Boivin said. In addition to the two Fulbright awards he has received, Boivin has been nominated for three other grants under the program.

Boivin spent the 1990-91 academic year in Congo (formerly Zaire) at a small medical mission. He returned to Africa in 2004 to do research at Makerere University in Uganda.

"I've been comparatively successful as a Fulbright researcher," Boivin said. "When you go there, get something done and come back alive, that's successful for Africa."

In October, Boivin and four other former Fulbright recipients will review applications for the 2006-07 awards. The committee will meet at the Washington offices of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the program.

"I anticipate there will be about 85 applications from U.S. scholars in all disciplines for the committee to review," said Debra Egan, a CIES administrator. "Dr. Boivin's research experience in Africa will bring extremely relevant expertise to the process."

Boivin said typically 15 to 20 applicants are nominated for Fulbright awards, but only about half of the nominees will receive grants.

"Our committee assignment is to review applicants for a specific geographic region," Boivin said. "We will evaluate the applicants' credentials and their proposals to determine whether they are going to be able to accomplish what they want to do."

During Boivin's year in Congo, he studied the neuropsychological effects of treatment for anemia from intestinal parasites, chronic malaria and iron-poor anemia in school children. His research in Uganda focused on the neuropsychological effects of cerebral malaria in children.

Boivin recently submitted a request for a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue the study of malaria, which is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5 in East Africa.

Boivin's interest in the welfare of children who live a world away began in the summer of 1989 when he traveled to the Congo to visit his in-laws. It was his first overseas trip.

"That month really changed my life, just seeing the culture, the level of human need and the tremendous difference in anything I ever had experienced," he says.

The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government's flagship program in international educational exchange, was proposed to the U.S. Congress in 1945 by then freshman Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government's flagship program in international educational exchange, was proposed to the U.S. Congress in 1945 by then freshman Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

Fulbright viewed the proposed program as a much-needed vehicle for promoting "mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries." His vision was approved by Congress and signed into law in 1946.

The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and funded with an annual appropriation by Congress.

Alan Miller is the University Relations Director at Indiana Wesleyan University.