Faculty Fulbrights bring international partnerships to Dearborn Wolverines

Three UM-Dearborn faculty from three different colleges were awarded grants to teach or conduct research in three different areas of the world — Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia — through the Fulbright awards program.

The U.S. Fulbright Scholar exchange program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, awarded grants to UM-Dearborn faculty. Composition and Rhetoric Teaching Professor Kristian Stewart received an award for the 2023-24 cycle. Business Economics and Finance Lecturer Mercedes Miranda and Computer and Information Science Associate Professor Birhanu Eshete earned grants for the 2024-25 cycle.

“A Fulbright Award is a way we can bring other parts of the world back to our students,” says Stewart, who did her most recent Fulbright in Indonesia over the summer. “We have diversity on our campus. There are times when I have students with five different first languages in my classroom. But we can still get isolated in our own groups, in our own enclaves. So it’s important to connect our students with people in different areas of the world that they may be unfamiliar with. And it’s important for them to learn how to tell — and listen — to the stories of others. Fulbright awards open doors to connect our students to people in different areas of the world.”

Reporter spoke with Stewart and Miranda about their recent awards. Eshete, who is currently in Ethiopia, will be highlighted in a future story.

Mercedes Miranda, Egypt

Miranda says an exchange opportunity changed her life when she was a college undergraduate. As a part of a pilot program at her university in her home country of Ecuador, Miranda — an economics student — was chosen to join a cohort that would study at the University of New Orleans in the United States.

“That opened a world of opportunities for me to create new networks to climb the career ladder and to experience a different culture,” says Miranda, who notes that, as cultural immersion, she watched “Saturday Night Live” until she was able to pick up the references and laugh at the jokes. “Many of our students at UM-Dearborn may be of Arabic descent, but they are born here and do not have the financial means to travel outside of the U.S. I see this Fulbright as a way to help me better understand life in a MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) country, while also creating ways to help my UM-Dearborn students connect with people across the world.”

Starting in February, Miranda will be teaching four-month business economics courses in Egypt, contributing her expertise to global academic exchanges and fostering international collaboration. Miranda has previously done non-Fulbright teaching in China for MBA students and in Italy for undergraduates.

Miranda’s Fulbright university will be in Cairo, but the name of the institution will not be shared with her until 10 days prior to the beginning of the Fulbright due to their protocol. She will teach both undergraduate and graduate courses that have an interdisciplinary, hands-on approach and merge concepts from finance, business economics and international business.

“I am going to teach through using business case studies through the Egyptian economic perspective, while also having the students reach out to Egyptian businesses to create a collaborative project that will help the businesses and give students the applicable knowledge they need,” she says. “I do something similar at UM-Dearborn, except from an American perspective and we work with Dearborn- and Detroit-based small businesses.”

Miranda enjoys seeing other areas of the world, but this will be the first time she’s traveled to Egypt. She chose to apply to the country specifically because it was the largest country in the MENA region with an institution where she could apply her international business economics expertise and 20% of the population are in the age range of 15 to 24. 

“Many of our students are fluent in Arabic and I wanted an Arabic-speaking country that had a younger demographic. I see my Fulbright as the first step to a partnership of some type. Maybe it’s a project or a class. Maybe it’s having UM-Dearborn students go there or for Egyptian students to study here,” says Miranda, who notes COB Dean Frédéric Brunel will visit Egypt while she is there to meet faculty and university officials. “No matter what it will look like, I do know that this is only the beginning of something very wonderful.”

Kristian Stewart, Indonesia

When Stewart returned from Greece in fall 2023, after her first Fulbright Scholar Award, she looked for additional international collaboration opportunities through Fulbright. She found a 40-day Fulbright Specialist opportunity to create a Center for Academic Writing at the Universitas Negeri Medan in Medan, Indonesia. Stewart applied for this Fulbright Award and received it in 2024.

Stewart traveled to Indonesia in summer 2024. In addition to developing a Center for Academic Writing on the Medan campus, running workshops and giving talks, Stewart provides one-on-one instruction and critiques for faculty academic papers. “After the five weeks, I left them the curriculum as a foundation for their Center for Academic Writing. To continue our relationship, I'm still working with their faculty. On Tuesday mornings our time, I'm theirs for the morning. They can put questions or their work in WhatsApp or a Google drive and I can edit and give feedback.” Before I left, we discussed how they would like to come to UM-Dearborn and co-teach with me or how we can bring UM-Dearborn students there,” Stewart says. “The Fulbright award might be for a relatively short period of time, but the effects of the work being done through the program will be long lasting for me, their faculty and our students.”

Stewart says her goal is to foster additional international connections that will benefit UM-Dearborn students. And it’s working. UM-Dearborn and the University of the Peloponnese recently signed a memorandum of understanding. Students and faculty from the two schools plan to work together for the next five years on writing-related research endeavors, including students virtually working together and sharing stories. 

In Stewart’s UM-Dearborn course, titled Being Human Today, her students collaborate with students from universities around the world to create short videos that present life through individual lenses. “You combat stereotypes by having experiences outside of your own. You find solutions to world issues by learning from other people and seeing how they solve problems. Exposure is key,” says Stewart, who has previously taught in multiple countries, including South Africa, China, Germany and Italy.

Working with the University of Peloponnese in Greece for her first Fulbright Award, Stewart tailored her UM-Dearborn digital storytelling course to fit the needs of the Greek school’s curriculum, available technologies and student population. A highlight of her first Fulbright Award was an invitation to provide a plenary address at Jefferson House, the residence of the United States Ambassador to Greece, where she was proud to provide remarks and represent UM-Dearborn to an international audience. 

Stewart has additionally established  a Collaborative Online International Learning partnership with a partner in South Africa. Students from her Global Citizenship class just finished an eight-week project this term. Both professors are looking for ways to extend the relationship since the project was well received by all the students involved.

Story by Sarah Tuxbury