BEMIDJI, Minn. (April 15, 2010) — Dr. Louise Jackson, professor of psychology and director of the women’s studies program at Bemidji State University, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Grant for 2010-11 to serve as a guest scholar at Comenius University in the Slovak Republic.
Jackson will teach courses on counseling and supervision and family therapy and Comenius and also consult on the school’s graduate curriculum.
“I’m going to be doing what I do here at Bemidji State, and that is to teach graduate students how to be psychotherapists,” Jackson said.
In both of Jackson’s courses at Comenius, she will use an intense supervision teaching model where graduate students supplement academic coursework with hands-on experiences in a simulated environment that are filmed and individually scrutinized and reviewed.
In addition, she will be working with faculty to develop its graduate program in counseling psychology, based on her experiences establishing a similar program at Bemidji State.
Jackson, who will be retiring from the University at the end of this academic year, will also continue her own personal research into the gender roles of women, examining how successful professional women are impacted by childhood experiences and parental relationships.
It is the second Fulbright grant won by Jackson since 2000. In 2000-01, she also received a grant to teach at Tallinn Pedagogical University in Estonia. There, she taught counseling practicum and lifespan development and supervised the school’s Psychology Club.
“It is a great honor to be awarded a Fulbright,” Jackson said. “You can only win two in a lifetime, and for me to get a second one is pretty darn fabulous.
“For me, there is an intense challenge moving into a new culture,” Jackson said. “In some ways they’re all similar, but you’re still starting from scratch. You enter a country with an assignment, which is good, but you still have to find an apartment, learn transportation systems, learn enough of the language to buy and sell and develop relationships with people. Only then can you get to work and make an impact.
“The ability to teach abroad has had a tremendous impact on my appreciation for other cultures and for our own culture,” she said. “It’s also amazing and wonderful to do this post-retirement; I feel like this gives me an opportunity to continue to make a meaningful contribution.”
Aside from teaching, Jackson also has engaged in private counseling, has been the lead consultant with Jackson Counseling and has spoken and presented at numerous conferences and training sessions over the last three decades.
Jackson received her bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Michigan, her master’s in educational psychology and Eastern Michigan University and her doctorate in counseling at Indiana State University.
Jackson’s Fulbright Research Grant is one of two won by Bemidji State University faculty this year; Dr. Janice Haworth, associate professor of music, will be teaching music in Guinea, West Africa.
The pair of 2010 Fulbright grants brings the total won by BSU faculty since 2000 to five. Dr. Kit Christianson won an award last year to study politics in Norway, and BSU faculty won two Fulbrights in 2000-01. That year, in addition to Jackson’s first grant to study in Estonia Dr. Patricia L. Rogers won a Fulbright to study education in Iceland.
ON THE WEB
• Dr. Louise Jackson discusses her Fulbright Grant: http://www.youtube.com/user/BSUNews
About the Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, the U.S. Government’s flagship international exchange program, is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. With this goal as a starting point, the Fulbright Program has provided almost 300,000 participants chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
The Program was established by Congress in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which works with private non-profit organizations in the United States and with U.S. embassies and binational Fulbright Commissions abroad to administer the program. Policy guidelines are established by the Presidentially-appointed J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, which also selects the recipients of Fulbright awards.
Since 1947, the Fulbright Scholar Program has awarded nearly 45,000 grants to support teaching and research in countries around the world. Today it includes active programs in more than 125 countries.