SUNY New Paltz professor receives Fulbright Scholar Award to teach in Serbia

NEW PALTZ — Laura J. Dull, professor of secondary education at the State University of New York at New Paltz, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach and conduct research for six months during the spring 2007 semester in Vranje, a city in the southern part of Serbia.

While there, Dull will give lectures at the University of Nis College of Pedagogy for Primary School teachers. Through interviews, observations in schools, and curriculum analysis, she will also explore the meanings of modernity and development for teachers and citizens at a time when the nation is striving toward integration into a capitalist economy. This will build on her work in the field of international and comparative education.

Dull received her Masters in Teaching from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1989 and was a social studies teacher in New York City alternative public schools for seven years. While working toward her Ph.D. in International Education at New York University, she spent a year teaching at Peki Training College in Ghana as a Teachers for Africa volunteer. Her book based on this research, “Disciplined Development: Teachers and Reform in Ghana,” will be published this May.

Dull joined the secondary education department at SUNY New Paltz in fall, 2002 and teaches courses in pedagogical methods, educational action research, and history and debates in social studies. She is also coordinator of the social studies program. She earned a United University Professions Individual Development Award to study Serbian language this May.

Dull is one of 13 New Paltz professors within the last 22 years to receive a Fulbright grant. The other professors who have been awarded Fulbright grants are: Clifton Meador (Art), Republic of Georgia; Victor de Munck (Anthropology), Lithuania; Lee A. Bell (Educational Studies), Mexico; Robert Miraldi (Communication and Media), Netherlands; Gerald Benjamin (Dean/Liberal Arts and Sciences), Japan; Harry R. Stoneback (English), China; Francis Xavier Paz (English), Syria; Gerald Sorin (History), Netherlands; Beatrice F. Conover (English as a Second Language), Mexico; Maria Susan Palmera (English as a Second Language), Turkey; Lorraine G. Farina (English), Italy; and Aaron M. Bindman (Sociology), Yugoslavia.