German Fulbright students visit W&J College
The scene in a classroom in Washington & Jefferson College’s Technology Center earlier this week was pretty typical. Students hoisted backpacks and tote bags, clutched cups of coffee and bottles of water, and stole glances at their laptops and iPhones.
They weren’t students taking a look around the school a few weeks before the start of the fall semester, however. The 23 students in the classroom were Fulbright scholars from Germany, who have been visiting W&J since July 24 and have been participating in a seminar on the social, environmental and economic impact of sustainability initiatives in the Pittsburgh region. Of course, they’ve also been learning about the United States and American culture along the way, making visits to the Senator John Heinz History Center, the Pittsburgh Three Rivers Regatta and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
“I love it,” said Fabian Kokemoor, a 21-year-old from Osnabruck. “It’s so American. It’s a dream come true for me. I have been wanting to visit the United States. It’s nice that I can see what college life is like here, the life of the students.”
While W&J has previously sent students and faculty abroad under the Fulbright Program, the long-running international educational exchange program founded and named for the Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright, this is the first time a group of foreign students has come to W&J under the auspices of the Fulbright Program. Virginia Tech is the second institution of higher learning hosting German students this summer.
It came about after Michael Shaughnessy, the associate dean of graduate studies and international programs at W&J, was a Fulbright scholar in France last year. “We had a meeting with the French and German contingents of Fulbright seminars, and W&J’s participation arose from those conversations,” he said.
While this is the first Fulbright seminar in which W&J has participated, it has previously hosted groups of students from abroad before in the summer. For instance, a group of Omani students visited the campus a couple of years ago.
What have their impressions been?
“Western Pennsylvania is generally considered very safe and very calm and less expensive,” said Dana Poole, W&J’s director of international student initiatives.
Oliver Boenke, who hails from Berlin, explained he learned more about hydraulic fracturing during his visit, a practice which is largely banned in Germany.
He added, “It’s very interesting how people are living here in this little town with this huge campus.”