Highest Honors

By Patrick Bohn, February 14, 2023

IC named top Fulbright Award producer for 2022–23

Ithaca College’s excellence was shown once again when it was named a top producer of faculty Fulbright Award winners. For the 2022–23 academic year, the college had three scholars selected, placing it in a tie for second among master’s institutions, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

This year, finance and international business professor Alka Bramhandkar and theatre arts professor Kathleen Mulligan were awarded Fulbright Scholar Grants, as was former associate professor of politics Patricia Rodriguez.

Bramhandkar is currently at the Universidad del Desarrollo in Santiago, Chile. There she is serving as a consultant for the university’s initial Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation and is helping to develop a course in sustainable business management.

Theatre arts professor Kathleen Mulligan (left) and finance and international business professor Alka Bramhandkar are both currently abroad.

(Photos submitted)

Mulligan was a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence award for her project titled “Preserving the Vanishing Stories of Partition.” She traveled to Amritsar, India, to work with students at both Khalsa College and Sant Singh Sukha Singh College of Commerce for Women as an extension of her work on her 2015 project, which grew from interviews with those who lived through the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan.

“We are proud that we have again been named one of the top faculty Fulbright producers, and proud of our faculty scholars. Their awards demonstrate the global reach of their research programs, which in turn inform and enrich their students’ experiences here on campus in their classrooms.”

Melanie Stein, provost

“We are proud that we have again been named one of the top faculty Fulbright producers, and proud of our faculty scholars,” said provost Melanie Stein. “Their awards demonstrate the global reach of their research programs, which in turn inform and enrich their students’ experiences here on campus in their classrooms.”

In a letter to President La Jerne Terry Cornish congratulating the college on its achievement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called it a testament to IC's deep commitment to international exchange and to building lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

“Ithaca College’s place among the Fulbright Program’s 2022-2023 Top Producing Institutions clearly demonstrates your dedication to preparing Americans to thrive in the global economy and serve as engaged citizens,” Blinken wrote.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Since its inception in 1946, more than 400,000 participants from all backgrounds and fields—including recent university graduates, teachers, scientists, researchers, artists, and others from the United States and over 160 other countries—have participated in the Fulbright Program. Ithaca College has produced at least 48 faculty Fulbright scholars and 44 student awardees.