January 14, 2003
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A highly competitive graduate-level fellowship program established to encourage economic and democratic growth in Eurasia is bringing a more international flair to the student body at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development.
Students studying within The Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Peabody now include graduate students from 15 nations – 10 of these students are Muskie fellows.
The Vanderbilt contingency of Muskie fellows is the largest in the nation studying issues in education, higher education and education policy.
The Edmund S. Muskie/Freedom Support Act Graduate Fellowship Program, created by the U.S. Congress in 1992, provides fellowships at participating American universities to citizens of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan in a variety of academic disciplines.
“These folks are the brightest in their respective countries, and very few are chosen each year,” said Tim Caboni, Vanderbilt lecturer in higher education, who is teaching many of the Muskie fellows this year. “When they return to their home countries, we know they will be the people who lead the transformation and management of the education systems there.”
Muskie fellows are selected through a merit-based competition and are provided with full scholarships, including tuition, fees, room, board, health insurance, book allowance, a monthly stipend, and international and domestic travel. They are assigned by program administrators to the host institution where they will study. After completion of the program, the students are expected to return home.
“Acting as a host institution for the Muskie Fellows Program benefits us because it further internationalizes actual coursework and broadens the experience for our U.S. students and our faculty,” Caboni said.
“We want to be the place where folks around the world turn when they want their higher-education administrators to be trained both in the theory of higher education and in putting that theory into practice in the real world,” Caboni said.
The Muskie Fellowship Program is a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, and is administered by the American Councils for International Education and the Open Society Institute.
Stephen Heyneman, Vanderbilt professor of international education policy, coordinates the University’s efforts with the Muskie Fellows Program and is now involved in the preliminary selection of next year’s scholars.
Heyneman said the Muskie Program, along with two similar fellowship programs that involve countries in which the Muskie program is not available, offers Peabody unprecedented opportunities to diversify its curriculum and student body.
“By accessing the best and brightest in these three programs, Peabody College will have the opportunity to serve graduate students from 27 countries, supported by the U.S. government,” said Heyneman.