Each year, the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces the names of U.S. higher education institutions that produced the highest numbers of applicants selected for the Fulbright U.S. Scholar and Fulbright U.S. Student Programs.
Dartmouth has once again been named to that list, which includes 174 colleges and universities around the country.
“We are delighted to be a Fulbright top-producing institution,” says President Philip J. Hanlon ’77. “Fulbrighters foster mutual understanding, share knowledge across communities, and improve lives around the world. We are proud that so many of our students are continuing to serve as cultural ambassadors through this highly competitive program with a global impact.”
The State Department made a similar commendation about Dartmouth in 2018.
In fact, Dartmouth has long been fertile ground for Fulbright fellows, says Christie Harner, assistant dean of faculty for fellowship advising.
She says that between 1949 and 2021, 260 Dartmouth applicants received and accepted Fulbright awards, with some other potential recipients opting not to enter the program.
Still others who attended Dartmouth may have applied to the Fulbright program via other institutions.
Harner says she is proud of Dartmouth’s track record over many decades.
“This honor points both to the diverse strengths of Dartmouth’s student and alumni body—Fulbrighters who serve as teachers, researchers, and students in many languages, countries, and fields—and also to the efforts of Fellowship Advising to expand awareness of the opportunity and mentorship on the application process,” she says.
Thirteen students received Fulbright grants through Dartmouth last year, either to do research or teach English outside the U.S. All but one accepted the award to live and work abroad.
One of the awardees, Lucas Joshi ’23, has been living and studying in Goa, India, for the past five months.
“The community here is incredibly supportive, from the archives to the university to the bus stop, and I am forever grateful to have met friends and mentors all throughout Goa,” he says. “I have been able to deepen my knowledge of the Indian Ocean world, thinking and writing about legacies of enslavement and shared ancestries between Africa and India.”
Joshi, whose family lives in Maryland, chose to study in India in part because his father was born there.
“The most moving part of the Fulbright has been being able to validate and give voice to the Afro-Indian family histories that I have heard all my life,” he says. “One of the most enriching parts of the experience has been seeing the overlap between this project and the kind of research and theory that will continue to inform my work as a PhD candidate at Brown University this coming fall.”
Named for U.S. Sen. William J. Fulbright, the program was established by President Harry Truman in 1946 to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries,” according to the Fulbright program. “Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 78 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who carry forward the Fulbright mission of enhancing mutual understanding.”
More information about Fulbright awards through Dartmouth is available through the Office of Undergraduate Advising and Research.