Professor and Student from Park School Win Fulbright Awards

TV-R Professor to Teach at University of Tuzla

John Rosenbaum, an associate professor of television-radio, has received a grant from the Fulbright program to spend the 2001-2 academic year at the University of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is Rosenbaum’s second Fulbright award; in 1997 he was one of 24 scholars selected for the study group Communication Sciences and Media in Germany, which traveled to eight German cities.

"The mass media are some of the most important social institutions undergoing transitions in post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe," Rosenbaum says. "Education in mass communication and journalism is needed to develop new structures and cultures of open media."

Responding to this new development, the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tuzla inaugurated a print journalism program. They now want to professionalize the program and expand it into radio and television.

"As a practitioner and educator, I have been invited by the dean of the faculty to help develop the infrastructure of this fledgling program and to teach courses on U.S. media, new media technologies, radio and television production, and research methods," Rosenbaum says. "In addition, I have been encouraged to initiate a research program on Balkan media along the lines of my previous work on Central and Eastern European media."

While providing immediate benefits to Tuzla and its students, Rosenbaum hopes the long-term results of his work will benefit Bosnian media by providing them with a pool of educated graduates.

"Ultimately, the formation of open media in all areas of Bosnia will also have positive social values for its citizens," he says. "But this is not just a one-way street. In addition to benefiting Bosnians, these activities also will advance my own research agenda and provide materials for the courses on European media that I teach at Ithaca College."

Rosenbaum has been on the television-radio faculty since 1987. He coordinates the international communications concentration and minor and is also a regional visiting scholar at Cornell University’s Institute
for European Studies. In addition, he serves as an expert consultant for the University System of Georgia’s EU studies Web course project, Communications and the Media.

Among the courses Rosenbaum teaches are European Mass Media, New Telecommunications Technologies, Quantitative and Qualitative Mass Media Research Methods, and Senior Seminar: Topics in Media Effects. He has written, produced, and directed for television and radio in the United States and has published articles in International Television, Croatian Journal of Media Research, and International Journal of Engineering Education, among other journals. He is the coauthor of the fourth edition of the textbook Television Production.

Graduating Senior will Study in Morocco

Ibrahim Shakoor, a senior studying organizational communication, learning, and design, has been awarded a grant from the Fulbright student program. He will spend the 2001–2 academic year in Morocco exploring communication principles in traditional Sufi communities and comparing them to secular models. Ithaca College has had one student Fulbright winner every year for the last four years.

"Mr. Shakoor’s impressive accomplishments and leadership skills have made possible his selection for the Fulbright program," says Alan Schechter, chairman of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. "He will be joining the ranks of some 225,000 distinguished scholars and professionals worldwide who are leaders in the educational, political, economic, social, and cultural lives
of their countries."

Sufism, a mystical practice assimilated by Islam, played an important role in the cultural and religious life of Morocco as early as the seventh century A.D. However, Western influences eventually overshadowed the Sufi system.

"My research approaches Morocco as a dynamic system whose economic, political, and educational development depends on communication," Shakoor says. "I am looking to determine whether Sufism’s historical influence on these institutions remains in the communication structures of modern Moroccan organizations."

Before enrolling at Ithaca College, Shakoor had already traveled abroad. In 1996, at age 17, he served as a teaching assistant in English in Sarajevo. Two and a half years later he spent the spring semester of his sophomore year in Morocco, studying Arabic, improving his French, and working on an independent study project on Sufism. "I chose Morocco because I was interested in learning about the experience of Muslims in a country where they were a majority and because French and Arabic have always interested me," he says. "Going back will probably change my outlook on future work and study, but right now I plan on continuing my organizational communication studies in some form."

He has plans for graduate study, possibly a master’s in business administration with a focus on strategic management and consulting. He will then look for a doctoral program that combines his interests in language, Middle Eastern studies, and organizational development.

"In receiving the Fulbright, I am extremely grateful for my family’s support," he says. "I am also grateful for the academic grounding the organizational communication, learning, and design department gave me, and for the encouragement and advice of the faculty and staff at the College."

The Fulbright program was established at the end of World War II to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills. Fulbright grants are awarded to students, faculty, and professionals who wish to study, teach, or do research abroad.