Lillian Pardey ’25 has recently accepted a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) in Taiwan during the 2025-26 academic year. During the program, Pardey will assist in English classrooms while promoting cultural exchange in an elementary or junior high school in the county of Taitung.
“From this program, I hope to better understand how language and learning intersect in a global classroom,” said Pardey, who recently graduated with a bachelor’s in social work and minor in communication sciences and disorders.
As an ETA, Pardey’s main goal is to encourage mutual understanding between the U.S. and her host country of Taiwan.
“Taiwan places a strong emphasis on education and community, and as someone with experience supporting learning in diverse ways, I’m drawn to environments that value both academic achievement and holistic development, qualities of Taiwan’s attitude towards education,” Pardey explained.
The Fulbright Program operates in more than 160 countries worldwide and has provided approximately 400,000 participants with the opportunity to study, teach, or conduct research in each other’s countries and exchange ideas. Approximately 8,000 competitive, merit-based grants are awarded annually in most academic disciplines and fields of study.
Pardey began the process of applying to the Fulbright Program in spring of 2024 and was awarded a grant in May 2025. She has a passion for communication and plans to pursue a career in speech-language pathology.
“I’m very grateful for support from Dr. [Mihaela] Moscaliuc and the Fulbright team at Monmouth,” Pardey said. “I also want to give a special shout-out to the Model United Nations team, which has helped my understanding of global affairs and been a source of growth through the connections I have made.”
The Fulbright Program, the flagship international academic exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, has fostered mutual understanding between the United States and other countries since 1946. Fulbrighters from the United States and around the world have gone on to achieve distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, and education. Among the ranks of Fulbright alums are 62 Nobel Prize recipients, 80 MacArthur Foundation Fellows, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, and 42 current or former heads of state or government.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is administered at Monmouth University through its Institute for Global Understanding under the leadership of Mihaela Moscaliuc, graduate program director and professor of English. For more information, visit monmouth.edu/fulbright.