"WHAT IS A SEAWOLF? I AM A SEAWOLF!"
Our first-class Fulbright learning encounter at Stony Brook University
by Dr. Kerstin Vogel - Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Main
Participant of the Fulbright Seminar for German Student Services Administrators 2009
I have to admit: I had always wanted to be a Fulbright grantee. As a German Americanist, I had heard about their distinguished programs early on in my studies but never actually applied for any of their scholarships during the course of my study. Luckily, I was offered a second chance when I learned that the Fulbright Commission had launched a new seminar for German Student Services Administrators (GSSA) actively involved in developing career services, fundraising, and alumni issues at their schools.
By promoting this new module, the Fulbright Commission in Berlin is reacting to some of the current challenges in German higher education: Apart from the curricular reforms designed to bring degrees into compliance with the 47-nation Bologna Process and the imposition of tuition in some federal states, many German universities are currently grappling to enhance their finances in view of ever-short state funding and an increasing international competition for the best minds of the generation. Fundraising, career services, and alumni care thus play an increasingly important role not only in the financing of German higher education but also in the formation of the student body. In Mainz, we are vividly engaged in the above discussion, continuously asking ourselves how to best cater to our students and offer a high-class education in view of the current changes in research and teaching and our constantly high number of students. Therefore, my university management welcomed the opportunity to send me abroad as a participant of the GSSA Seminar 2009 in order to find out what German and US-American universities can learn from each other in these comparatively new fields of higher education management. What better place to do so, I ask you, than Long Island? And what better delegates than ten German Student Services Administrators which represented Germany in all its width: from the very North (Flensburg) to the very South (Konstanz), from the very West (Düsseldorf) to the very East (Dresden).
- The participants of the 2009 Seminar for German Student Services Administrators at Stony Brook University
"You are the first seminar group that we send overseas in this program, and we will need you to report back to us from your visit to Stony Brook University in order to actively develop and/or improve it for future Fulbright grantees," we were welcomed at our orientation session in early September in Berlin. What was advised as a somewhat guinea-pig experience turned out to be a first-class learning encounter: Our week on Long Island (September 21-25, 2009) not only provided an excellent inside glimpse on the American system of higher education, its teaching philosophy and financial structures, it also explored the relationship between study programs and job market, university partnerships, community and industry relations, and the universities´ networks with their alumni.
- Experiential with "Wolfie": Anja Klütsch (left) and Kerstin Vogel
We were hosted by Dr. Elizabeth Barnum, Assistant Dean for International Services, and Marianna Savoca, Director of the Stony Brook University Career Center, who did a fantastic job in putting together a schedule that covered just about everything one could ask for in the work fields in question: from Enrolment Management to Communications, from Advancement to Career Services – including "experiential sessions," in which we not only participated in the Engineering IT Job and Internship Fair but also got to chat with alumni and hug "Wolfie," the school’s Seawolf mascot.
Being Fulbright alumni themselves, Marianna and Elizabeth knew exactly what an intensive one-week learning experience needed: Apart from expert speakers, campus visits and "job-shadowing" our schedule also allowed us to interact with our hosts and with each other, to ask questions and discuss some of the information in more detail after work or in more informal settings. We could not have wished for better hostesses nor better teams to support them (and, yes, we all went to Manhattan!).
- Wonderful hostesses: Marianna Savoca, Patricia Hayes, and Joyce Guglielmo from the Stony Brook University Career Center (from left to right)
As to our host university, it was a choice well made: Our one-week visit to Stony Brook, which compellingly markets itself as "a university with a mind of its own," far exceeded my expectations. One of the four university centers in the State University of New York system, Stony Brook is a public research university located about 55 miles east of Manhattan with an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. Its reach extends from its 1,100-acre campus on Long Island’s North Shore – encompassing the main academic areas (among others) an 8,300-seat stadium and sports complex, a performing arts center, and Stony Brook University Medical Center – to Stony Brook Manhattan, a new Research and Development Park, three business incubators including one at Calverton, New York, and the new Stony Brook Southampton campus on Long Island’s East End. More importantly, though, as a state university, Stony Brook’s size, organization, and funding (68% state funding in New York) compared well to German state-funded universities so that the challenges and stake were comparable as well.
Although we spent most of our time at Stony Brook campus, we also ventured out to meet colleagues from LIM College – an upcoming private college located in midtown Manhattan that prepares students for careers in every aspect of the business of fashion – and Brookhaven National Laboratory, a multipurpose research laboratory co-managed by Stony Brook. With 2.800 employees and 4000 users, Brookhaven is one of the leading government research centers in the US and our visit allowed us a fascinating glimpse of its large, state-of-the-art facilities in Upton, NY.
As diverse as our group was in terms of background and interest, our one week spent at Stony Brook University provided a platform for us to explore and discuss current challenges in global higher education in-depth. The times we were able to meet up with employees and discuss professional issues one-on-one beyond the actual lecture sessions/presentations forged relations that, hopefully, will continue to work in the years to come. We all went home with a wealth of new ideas in our heads and "red hot" Stony Brook t-shirts in our pockets which, from now on, will not only identify us as participants of the first Fulbright Seminar for German Student Services Administrators but also as adopted "Seawolves."
- Heike Schwartz and Krischan Brandl
So here is a heartfelt "thank you" not only to our wonderful US colleagues and hosts but also to the German-American Fulbright Commission for continually improving their program and daring to try out new formats in view of recent changes – and therefore new challenges – in Germany's higher-education system. This seminar, I feel, helped promote mutual understanding between our two countries in the very best sense of Senator J. William Fulbright's visionary concept. Thank you, therefore, for a true Fulbright experience!