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Two Boston College faculty members will have the opportunity to share their expertise internationally through the United States Fulbright Program.
Law School Associate Professor E. Joan Blum and Professor of Political Science David A. Deese are on the Fulbright Program’s national roster of Fulbright Specialists, which promotes linkages between US academics and professionals and their counterparts at host institutions overseas, and awards grants in select disciplines for short-term collaborative projects in more than 100 countries.
Blum, in fact, will shortly depart for a Fulbright Specialist project at the University of Sarajevo, where during the next month she will consult with curriculum planners on expanding experiential learning opportunities for students, and make presentations to, and hold discussions with, faculty at the university.
She also will lead a daily two-week intensive demonstration course, Introduction to US Advisory Practice, which will provide an introduction to the US legal system and to legal problem solving through a simulation in which students act as practicing business lawyers.
The project will enrich Blum’s already considerable experience with the nascent Bosnian legal system. In 2009 and 2011, she conducted training programs on legal analysis and writing on behalf of the US Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training for judges and legal officers of the War Crimes section of the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During 2012, she was an in-house consultant on legal analysis and writing to the State Court, and conducted training programs on judicial writing and drafting appeals in war crimes cases.
“In Bosnia, as in most of Europe, legal education is more an academic discipline and less practice oriented, although they are beginning to incorporate some more practical experiences, such as moot court,” said Blum, who joined the faculty in 1985. “Last fall, I spoke with the dean of Sarajevo University Law School about the possibility of my working with law faculty to develop courses that, through experiential learning in the context of simulations, promote values associated with rule of law, including reflection, professional identity, and professional responsibility, in addition to teaching lawyering skills.
“I’m particularly excited to embark on this project, because my primary teaching at BC introduces the work of practicing lawyers and orients our first-year students to the materials and methods of the law,” she said. “Next fall, I will also be teaching Introduction to the Legal System of the United States to our LLM students. I am enthused about the synergy of teaching similar material to three very different groups of students — our first-year JD students, our international LLM students, and law students in Bosnia — and how I can use that synergy to benefit all three groups.”
Deese, whose research focuses on the international dimensions of political economic reform in developing, resource-based states and the Middle East region in particular, was gratified by his selection as a Fulbright Specialist.
“It is indeed exciting to broaden my mission, and to serve as a scholarly resource for universities and research centers from Indonesia to South Africa, Russia, or China," he said.
The author of The International Political Economy of Trade; Globalization: Causes and Effects; Economic Freedom: Causes and Consequences; and World Trade Politics: Power, Principles, and Leadership, Deese also studies leadership of international bargaining and negotiations and the interaction of economics and security in US foreign policy.
In addition to his research activities, Deese's academic training and professional career focuses significantly on cross-cultural education, exchanges and program development. At BC, he helped create summer study programs on the European Union in Belgium and in Kuwait, which evolved into a BC-American University of Kuwait partnership. He also has served as an external reviewer for BC foreign study programs in South America, the Middle East, Australia and Europe.
For more information about the Fulbright Specialist Program, see www.cies.org/specialists.
—Office of News & Public Affairs intern Meghan Dunn '15 contributed to this report