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PLU professor receives Fulbright award
PLU professor wins Fulbright award
PLU Professor Greg Williams will spend the 2012-2013 academic year continuing his work in Mexico as part of a prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award. A central theme of his work will be efforts to accommodate children and youth with disabilities into public schools.
Williams is a recipient of the J. William Fulbright – Arturo Garcia Robles U.S. Scholar All-Disciplines Award, one of five Fulbright programs in Mexico.
“J. William Fulbright believed that person-to person contact and the resultant cultural understandings that come from that are a contributor to world peace,” Williams said . “I believe that my previous work in Mexico at the University of Yucatan, in public schools in Merida, and at Sol y Luna is an exemplar of that.”
Williams has been actively involved with Sol y Luna since he first volunteered there in January 2007. He continued to return to Mexico to volunteer and was eventually asked to help with staff and program development. This award will give Williams the chance to further his work there.
“I’m going to be able to be there an entire year and that will give me the time to follow through on projects that I haven’t really had the time to follow through with before,” Williams said . This includes staff development, behavioral programming, and general program development.
He will also be working at a local public school in the area of school-wide discipline. He is already involved in the school as part of an integration program initiated through Sol y Luna.
“I’m going to broaden my presence and work with the entire school staff and assist them in how they work with all kids,” Williams said . “I’ll work with teachers, staff and administration to help them to work differently with the student population in terms of discipline and classroom management.”
The approach that he will use is termed “positive behavior support.” He has experience with implementing this approach in numerous schools in Washington.
In addition to this work, Williams will teach a course on assessment and evaluation at the University of Yucatan.
“It means a lot personally to be recognized and to have the opportunity to do even more,“ Williams said.
The Fulbright Program was founded in 1946 and is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide. The program operates in more than 140 countries and provides funding for one academic year.
Read about William’s prior work at Sol y Luna HERE.