Priscilla Gac-Artigas, professor of Spanish and Latin American Literature, and Mihaela Moscaliuc, assistant professor of English, have been awarded Fulbright Scholar grants following announcements made for the 2014-15 academic year by the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.
Professor Gac-Artigas received her grant to lecture and conduct research at the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH) this fall. Professor Moscaliuc was awarded a grant to teach at Al. I. Cuza University in Iasi, Romania, this coming spring,
Dr. Priscilla Gac-Artigas
Professor Gac-Artigas, who is also a contributing member of the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (North American Academy of the Spanish Language), worked with colleagues in the Department of Linguistics and Literature at USACH on a project that aims to strengthen students´ critical thinking, linguistic and written communication skills, and master student-led learning strategies.
“I am thrilled to be part of the Fulbright Program and to share the expertise that I have gained during my tenure at Monmouth University with colleagues and students at one of the finest universities in Latin America, and in return, to bring back the knowledge that I will gain in Chile to enrich the learning experience of my students at Monmouth,” said Professor Gac-Artigas. “One of the goals of the program is for Fulbright scholars to enhance the possibilities for all nations to live in peace and friendship, an ideal that I share with the Monmouth University community and its Institute for Global Understanding.”
Monmouth University’s Institute for Global Understanding, through academic programs, field experiences, service learning, and engagement in local and global communities, fulfills Monmouth University’s broad mission of promoting global understanding, diversity and leadership.
“One of my priorities has been to engage our students and faculty as members of the broader global community, said Paul R. Brown, president of Monmouth University. “The Fulbright Program provides Professor Gac-Artigas with the opportunity to establish bridges of cultural and intellectual exchange that will resonate across not only our two universities, but also our different countries. This type of intense, hands-on learning experience is something that has emerged as a core value for our scholar-teachers during our ongoing strategic planning process,” President Brown said.
Dr. Mihaela Moscaliuc
Professor Moscaliuc will teach courses in American literature and culture in the American Studies program, assist with curriculum development, and facilitate cultural exchanges at the university and in the larger community.
“As an undergraduate in Romania, I benefitted enormously, as did my peers, from the presence of American Fulbright Scholars, and so I am exhilarated to return there as one and to share my academic expertise and my understanding (as an insider-outsider) of both worlds. I hope to have the kind of impact other Fulbright scholars had on me and to return to Monmouth University and to the Monmouth community with initiatives for further cultural exchanges and an enriched understanding of how we might better promote global understanding,” said Professor Moscaliuc.
“I am delighted that Dr. Moscaliuc earned one of the competitive Fulbright Scholar grants,” President Brown added. “Fostering international connections with our faculty among universities around the world is a concrete example of one of our core strategic objectives; promoting global and cultural literacy throughout all of our academic programs.”
Born and raised in Romania, Professor Moscaliuc came to the United States in 1996 to complete graduate work in American literature. She received an M.A. from Salisbury University, an M.F.A. in poetry from New England College, and a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Maryland. She is the author of the poetry collections “Father Dirt” and “Immigrant Model,” the translator of Romanian poet Carmelia Leonte’s “The Hiss of the Viper,” and editor of a forthcoming collection of essays on poet Gerald Stern.
Her articles on representations of Roma/Gypsies, the works of Kimiko Hahn and Agha Shahid Ali, code-switching in American Poetry, and translation theory, have appeared or are forthcoming in “History of the Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries,” Soundings. An Interdisciplinary Journal, “Orient and Orientalisms in American Poetry and Poetics,” “The Task of Un-Masking: Essays on Poetry and Race,” and “Mad Heart Be Brave: On the Poetry of Agha Shahid Ali.” She is the recipient of two Glenna Luschei Awards from Prairie Schooner, a Ledig-Rowohlt residency fellowship at Le Chateau de Lavigny, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
About the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide. Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given over 318,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, scientists and other professionals the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.