Brownbag to Debrecen and Hortobágy National Park in April, 2019

Written by Fulbright on 04/18/2019. Posted in News

Brownbag to Debrecen and Hortobágy National Park (April, 2019)

One of our grantees’ favorite activities in Hungary is going on brown bag excursions in Budapest and to spots all over Hungary.

A good group of our student and scholar grantees travelled to Debrecen and the Hortobágy National Park in early April. Despite the less than perfect weather, our group showed good cheer and started the tour by stopping by at the University of Debrecen and its numerous Fulbright alumni commmunity. They were greeted by Fulbrighter, former board chair and former Rector Professor Zoltán Abádi-Nagy and Fulbrighters Professors Tibor Glant and Péter Csató.

Later on that day, we saw the Museum of the Reformed College of Debrecen (est. 1538), the Great Calvinist Church, as well as the Déry Museum with its three monumental Munkácsy paintings of the trial, convinction and cruxifiction of Jesus. The next day the group endured wind and bumpy roads to see the stud farm, hairy sheep, and the safari park in the Hortobágy National Park. These challenges were smoothed over with a hearty meal in the csárda (inn) by the bridge with 9 arches before the quiet journey home.

Fulbright Hungary Tours 4 US Campuses in March, 2019

Written by Fulbright on 04/02/2019. Posted in News

Fulbright Hungary firmly believes that visiting US campuses, especially those that have our alumni in place, or those that have not sent students or scholars to Hungary in a while or ever, deserve our time and effort.

Following up on a trip in October-November 2018 (University of South Florida, Auburn University, University of Georgia and University of South Carolina Upstate), Executive Director Károly Jókay visited 4 campuses this March. The purposes of these visits included: meeting Fulbright Hungary alumni, discussing opportunties in Hungary and the rest of the V4+2 region (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania) with faculty advisors and internationalization officers, holding public lectures targeting student and faculty recruitment to our region, and finally, exploring opportunities for collaboration such as cost-sharing agreements and other events in Hungary for visiting US university people.

Wheaton College

Professor David van Dyke (’18 Eszterházy Károly University) hosted Károly at Wheaton College (Wheaton, Illinois). David is working on joint projects with Semmelweis University, including a dual degree in family and marriage therapy. We expect that David will be a frequent return visitor to Hungary, and that some of his students and colleagues will be in our applicant pool soon.

The University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana is best known as Károly’s alma mater where he earned his MA and PhD in Political Science almost 30 years ago. As a top producer of both in-bound and out-bound Fulbright students and scholars, U of Illinois has not been present in the Fulbright Hungary program. We were able to clarify our selection criteria, and offer a detailed explanation of the type of specialized grants we offer. Meeting with potential student and scholar applicants, as well doing an all-campus talk on V4+2 programs, will produce benefits down the road.

Marymount University

Marymount University is hosting its first Fulbright scholar in living memory in AY 2020-21, and she is a Fulbright Hungary grantee. ED Jókay attended the formal inauguration of President Irma Becerra. Many Marymount faculty expressed an interest in applying for a grant in Hungary, and President Becerra announced in her inaugural speech that raising Marymount’s Fulbright program participation is one of her key priorities (Momentum: Strategic Plan 2019-2024). Fulbright Hungary’s newest partner Széchenyi István University was also present at the inauguration, and ED Jókay had the pleasure of taking part in a ceremony at which Marymount and Széchenyi signed a cooperation agreement.

Jókay’s final stop was the University of Pittsburgh and its Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies. Associate Director of REEES Zsuzsánna Magdó and the Honors College arranged for a day of 9+ meetings that included: the Hungarian Program, area studies programs, Scholarship mentors from the Honors College, the Center for Legal Education, Global Engagement, Center for International Studies and Study Abroad, and finally the Fulbright Association of Greater Pittsburgh. A general presentation on V4+2 opportunities had about 25 student and faculty audience members, and it seems that UPitt faculty and students will visit Fulbright Hungary on their next research foray.

University of Pittsburgh

Fulbright Hungary tours NY, FL, AL, SC, GA, VA, Alumni Present at HMAA Conference in Sarasota

Written by Fulbright on 12/20/2018. Posted in News

50th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Hungarian Medical Association of America

Fulbright Hungary Executive Director Károly Jókay went on a tour of current and potential Fulbright partners, visited alumni, took part in events organized by Fulbright alumni and had discussions with counterparts at IIE and the State Department in November

His tour started in New York, with a visit to IIE, City University and Columbia, and a pleasant evening with the Hungarian Information Exchange organized by alumni: Imre Varjú (’16 Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School) and Zsuzsanna Gedeon (’14 NYU). After New York, he ended up on Sarasota at the 50th meeting of the American Hungarian Medical Association (HMAA), where 8 alumni, both Americans and Hungarians, reported on their research and Fulbright experience.

Following Sarasota, ED Jókay visited the University of South Florida (USF) where he addressed the Central Florida Fulbright Association and spent a day and a half on campus talking to students and faculty. Later that week, he ended up at Auburn University in Alabama, where he was hosted by alum James Long for a day of meetings with students and faculty. The following week he went to the University of Georgia to spread the word on Fulbright Hungary and a day later found himself in Greenville/Spartanburg at the University of South Carolina Upstate campus, where the 2018 summer capacity building tour alum Alex Akulli showed him around and continued to build relationship. To close off those busy two weeks, in Washington ED Jókay visited Marymount University, met with alumni, attended the Spanish Commission’s 70th Anniversary reception and advocated for Fulbright with State Department colleagues.

Visit to the Bakony Mountains

Written by Fulbright on 11/20/2018. Posted in News

Visit to the Bakony Mountains

The Commission organized a visit to the Bakony Mountains for U.S. Fulbright grantees on October 5-6, 2018. The group visited the University of Pannonia hosted by Szilárd Szentgyörgyi (’15 Nazareth College) and the American Corner in Veszprém; the Cistercian Abbey of Zirc and the Pannon Observatory in Bakonybél. The next day the tour continued in Pápa at the Kékfestő (Blue-dyeing) Museum, the High School of the Reformed Church and Pannonia Reformata Museum followed by a visit to the Esterházy Mansion.

Visit to the Bakony Mountains

Fulbright Hungary and Indiana University Maurer Law School Sign Agreement

Written by Fulbright on 10/15/2018. Posted in News

Fulbright Hungary and Indiana University Maurer Law School Sign Agreement

October 12, 2018: Lesley Davis, Assistant Dean for International Affairs at the IU Maurer Law School and Károly Jókay, Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission in Hungary, signed an agreement to support up to two LLM students at IU in the area of Intellectual Property Law.

IU Maurer’s unique intellectual property LLM program, and Hungary’s need for innovation management, technology transfer and commercialization, are a perfect match for Hungarian Fulbright students who will apply in 2019 for the program starting in Academic Year 2020-21.

Fulbright will enjoy a significant tuition discount and other in-kind support from IU, while the Commission will continue to identify other sources of funding to ensure that the best qualified candidates may be identified and sent to IU Maurer into the future.
Fulbright will enjoy a significant tuition discount and other in-kind support from IU, while the Commission will continue to identify other sources of funding to ensure that the best qualified candidates may be identified and sent to IU Maurer into the future.

Stay tuned for our awards catalog for 2020-21!

US Study Abroad Capacity Building tour 2018

Written by Fulbright on 07/03/2018. Posted in News

US Study Abroad Capacity Building tour 2018

The Commission organized the 3rd U.S. Study Abroad Capacity Building tour for 10 representatives of U.S. universities between June 3-9, 2018

Day 1

The workshop on Internationalization of the Hungarian Higher Education was hosted by Orsolya Jánosik (Deputy Director, Division of Study in Hungary, TEMPUS Foundation). The activities of the Fulbright Commission and the Fulbright EducationUSA Advising Center were presented by Dr. Károly Jókay, Executive Director and Ms. Kornélia Litkei, Senior Adviser. U.S. Study Abroad Capacity Building tour participants met representatives of CIEE – Council on International Educational Exchange, the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design.

Day 2

The 10 representatives of US universities visited the Central European University and met representatives of Roma educational institutions: Evelin Farkas, Jesuit Roma Residential College and Mária Bogdán (’08 Columbia University), CEU – Romani Studies Program.

The group visited the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics hosted by Dean Kristóf Iván (’11 UC Berkeley) and a workshop was organized with representatives of University of Debrecen (Orsolya Jánosy, Head of International Affairs), Corvinus University of Budapest (István Vilmos Kovács, Director of International Relations and Innovation) and Eötvös Loránd University of Science (Dr. Ferenc Takó, Head of International Strategy Office).

Day 3

Capacity Building tour participants visited the University of Szeged by bus and participated in a workshop on the university’s international programs, policy led by Vice Rector Katalin Nagy (’02 Cornell Medical College, Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center). The group also visited the American Corner, the ELI – Extreme Light Infrastucture Laser Facility and met members of Fulbright Alumni Association Szeged Chapter.

Day 4

The group visited the Metropolitan University of Budapest Art Campus hosted by Dean György Túry (’12 Ohio State University) and met representatives of The Hungarian University of Fine Arts (É. Kiss Piroska). Later that day the group visited the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music hosted by Orsolya Freytag and Gyula Fekete (’94 Northwestern University & ’04 Chicago College of Performing Arts). The day concluded with a visit to the Hungarian Parliament and a concert at the Academy of Music.

Day 5

Visit to BSM – Budapest Semesters in Mathematics, workshop on Mathematics education in Hungary (Director Dezső Miklós)

Visit to AIT – Aquincum Institute of Technology, Budapest, workshop on mission, concept and practice (Gábor Bojár, Entrepreneur and Founder; András Recski, Academic Director)

Fulbright Flex researcher Johann Rafelski at Wigner Centre for Physics

Written by Fulbright on 06/22/2018. Posted in News

Johann Rafelski from The University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, was awarded a Senior Flex Fulbright Fellowship to visit in Summer 2019 and 2020 the Wigner Research Centre for Physics in Budapest. Eugene Paul Wigner was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist, engineer and mathematician who won Noble prize in 1963. The Wigner Institute is the largest Hungarian fundamental science research center where the research legacy of Prof. Wigner continues. Rafelski will be given the title “Distingusihed Wigner Professor” by this institute.

Rafelski’s primary host is Prof. Tamás Biró, vice-director of the Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, incorporating half of the Wigner Centre. Prof. Rafelski is well known to the Hungarian Physics community, and this relation has roots that go back nearly 40 years, when the young Dr. Rafelski proposed “Strangeness Signature” of the primordial phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma. At that time a bit younger graduate student Tamas Biro was charged by his supervisor Prof. Dr. Joseph Zimanyi to review Rafelski’s ideas and to improve the mathematical-theoretical description. The effort of Biro and Zimanyi helped Rafelski to refine his proposal further which became one of the corner stones of the research field where, since then, a few thousand scientists perform experiments at largest particle colliders simulating the Big-Bang conditions in the laboratory.

A low level connection of Rafelski with Budapest continued for the following decades. For example after Rafelski started the new conference series “Strangeness in Quark Matter”, within a few years in late ’90s the meeting took place in Budapest. However, a direct collaborative research effort of Rafelski and Biro did not occur even though both work in parallel to this day in several research fields. This possibility has been opened now by the Fulbright Flex Program.

Both researchers seen in the picture came to visit the Fulbright office in Budapest during a preparatory visit June 19, 2018 (Rafelski on right). They are looking forward to a fruitful and rewarding joint effort addressing the most intriguing current questions in the area of fundamental theoretical physics.

Alumni James Long to organize a visit for his Auburn University students to Hungary

Written by Fulbright on 05/29/2018. Posted in News

Alumni James Long to organize a visit for his Auburn University students to Hungary

Dr. James Long, Associate Professor of Accounting at Auburn University and a Fulbright scholar to Hungary in 2017, returned this May to organize a visit for a group of Auburn’s Master of Accountancy students in 2019. He met with a number of Hungarian colleagues, including ED Károly Jókay and Ms. Annamária Sas, American Grantee Program Officer at Fulbright Hungary, Fulbright Board member Zita Zoltayné Paprika, Dean of the Corvinus University of Budapest Business School, and several members of the Corvinus University faculty.

“It was wonderful to return to Hungary, catch up with friends and colleagues, and lay the groundwork to bring our students here next year,” said Long. “I had a fantastic Fulbright experience, and cannot wait for our students to have a similar opportunity to learn more about Hungary and its people.” During the trip, Auburn’s students will visit Hungarian businesses and historic/cultural attractions, attend lectures, and interact with Hungarian students to learn about Hungary’s culture, history, and political and economic environments.

Twenty two Hungarian Fulbrighters on their way to the US AY 2018-19

Written by Fulbright on 05/15/2018. Posted in News

Twenty two Hungarian Fulbrighters on their way to the US AY 2018-19

Fulbright Hungary held its annual orientation and farewell cruise for 22 Hungarian Fulbrighters selected for grants during Academic Year 2018-19.

We also said goodbye to US scholars and students the same day, May 11, 2018, during the cruise.

The class of 2018-19 has 22 members and includes 1 Humphrey Fellow on the way to Arizona State University, 10 students from all types of fields and 11 scholars. A large proportion of these grantees came from the University of Szeged and the research network of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. All in all, 19 different public institutions, universities, private firms and research organizations are represented, and each person comes from a different academic field.

The students and scholars are headed to the following public and private universities in the US: Cleveland State University, Central Connecticut St. University, U. of Vermont, U. of Tennessee, U. of Maryland, Duke, Indiana University, U. of Pennsylvania, Princeton, UC Berkeley, Stanford, U. of Washington, U. of Missouri, Hult, Rutgers, TCU, Stony Brook, UCLA, Northwestern, Penn State and Harvard.

Congratulations and we look forward to hearing about the great things they will do during their grant years.

Fulbright Hungary tours Ohio, Grantees and Alumni Present at Hungarian Studies Conference in Cleveland

Written by Fulbright on 05/04/2018. Posted in News

Fulbright Hungary tours Ohio, Grantees and Alumni Present at Hungarian Studies Conference in Cleveland

Fulbright Hungary Executive Director Károly Jókay toured 4 separate types of colleges and universities in Northern Ohio in April. Stops included visiting Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State Universty with whom Fulbright has a 5 year partnership, Ohio Northern University, a first generation rural institution in Ada, Ohio, as well as a small liberal arts college, Kenyon College. At all stops ED Jokay met with faculty advisors, in some locations Deans, but in all cases with students and faculty interested in Fulbright grants to not only Hungary but to the rest of the “V6” countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.

The second part of this visit was to provide the keynote address opening the annual conference of the American Hungarian Educators’ Association, held at Cleveland State University this year. Current Fulbright grantees from Hungary and US alumni constituted a significant portion of the audience and presenters. A key social event was a reception held in honor of Fulbright at the Cleveland Hungarian Museum, where Fulbright Hungary alumni, current grantees, as well as the general Hungarian community were in attendance.

Next year’s conference will be at University of Pittsburgh in early April, 2019, and Fulbright plans to make a strong showing there as well.

Fulbright Hungary tours Ohio, Grantees and Alumni Present at Hungarian Studies Conference in Cleveland

ED Károly Jókay with alumni Sarah Lucas (’16 Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and Mónika Fodor (’17 Cleveland State University)