Spencer Salas, assistant professor of middle, secondary and K-12 education in the College of Education , was selected for a Fulbright Senior Specialists project in TEFL/Applied Linguistics in Johannesburg, South Africa. The project will be completed in February and July 2013, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Salas will collaborate with the Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy in the development of its service capacities as one of Africa’s largest not-for-profit literacy providers.
Salas is one of more than 400 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad this year through the Fulbright Specialists Program. The program was created in 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program and provides short-term academic opportunities (two to six weeks) to prominent U.S. faculty and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post-secondary academic institutions around the world.
Salas is among 36 UNC Charlotte faculty who have been awarded Fulbright funding. A prolific author and researcher, Salas joined UNC Charlotte in 2007.
“We are very proud of our faculty selected to participate in the prestigious Fulbright program. Their accomplishments raise UNC Charlotte’s profile and strengthen our institution’s mission to support global perspectives,” said Christina Sanchez, associate director for the Office of International Programs.
The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange initiative, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For the past 60 years, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have taught, studied or conducted research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the United States. More than 285,000 emerging leaders in their professional fields have received Fulbright awards, including individuals who later became heads of government, Nobel Prize winners, and leaders in education, business, journalism, the arts and other fields.
Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement. Additional information about the Fulbright Specialists Program is available via email or on the Web.