Nov. 30, 2009

Dr. Gerald Shenk to work in the Philippines

Gerald Shenk, professor of social, behavioral and global studies at California State University, Monterey Bay, has been named a Fulbright Scholar and will work in the Philippines.

The six-month appointment began this month. Dr. Shenk will lecture on and research civic education and teacher training at Philippine Normal University in Manila.

About 800 U.S. faculty members and professionals will travel abroad to 150 countries during the 2009-10 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sponsors the program. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated leadership in their fields.

Dr. Shenk joined CSU Monterey Bay in 1996 and has taught a variety of courses in history, including California history and U.S. social and political history. He is best known among CSUMB students for his course, "Domination and Resistance in the Americas." His research interests include war and American society, race and gender, California history, African American history and Filipino American history. His most recent book is "Work or Fight! Race, Gender and the Draft during World War I," published in 2005.

He is the seventh CSUMB faculty member to win a Fulbright. The others are:

• Dr. Seth Pollack, director of the Service Learning Institute, spent the last academic year in South Africa, working on curriculum to address HIV/AIDS prevention.

• Dr. Judy Cortes, Spanish-language instructor and field placement coordinator in the Department of Teacher Education, spent a semester lecturing at a Chilean university in 2007.

• Dr. Lorenzo Covarrubias, an instructor in the Division of Social, Behavioral and Global Studies, spent 2007 lecturing at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa-Mazatlan, in Mazatlan, Mexico.

• Dr. Maria Zielina of the World Languages and Cultures Department spent spring 2004 at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland.

• Dr. Kathryn Poethig, professor of Social, Behavioral and Global Studies, taught religion and globalization at a university in the Philippines in 2003.

• Dr. Angie Tran, professor of political economy in Social, Behavioral and Global Studies, spent the 1999 academic year teaching at Hanoi National University, the first Fulbright Scholar in Vietnam.