News & Updates
Nan Rides for Fulbright
“My Fulbright in 2010 in Ireland was an outstanding experience,” says Nan McEntire. “I want to make sure that Fulbright continues to provide a strong and viable professional program for teachers and scholars throughout the world.”
Nan’s route across the United States
Many Fulbright alumni share Nan’s passion for promoting and protecting the Program. But not many go through such great lengths – literally – to do it. To raise money and awareness for the Fulbright Association’s mission, Nan plans to cycle coast-to-coast across America in a six-week journey. She will meet Fulbrighters and other friends of the Program along the 3400-mile trip.
At 72 years of age, Nan is a veteran cyclist. “A bicycle has been my number one mode of transportation for most of my life,” she says. “I rode a bike to Indiana State University for all of my teaching years because I was to cheap too pay for an annual parking permit, and I also ride everywhere here in Salt Lake City.”
As the President of the Utah Chapter of the Association, Nan also is serious about giving back to the Program from which she received so many priceless experiences. She has led the Chapter through a range of activities, from potlucks to hikes in Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Nan is riding with CrossRoads Cycling, an organization that gives participants the option of raising money for non-profit causes of their choice. Her cycling team will embark from Los Angeles on May 11, and plan to finish their long journey on June 29 when they ride into Boston. As they pass through 15 different states, covering an average of 90 miles per day, the group will take in the local sites and landmarks.
Would you like to support Nan’s ride? Click here to make a pledge. All donations will go directly to the Fulbright Association.
–Alison Aadland
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April 2019: Advocacy Update
Fulbrighters love a challenge. We imagined an adventure overseas (which also means coming to the U.S.) as an optimistic act of discovery and diplomacy. We then tackled the unexpected problems of living that adventure, and then we returned, eager to give back to the communities—and the taxpayers—who had funded our grants.
Our current and ongoing challenge is how to help the Fulbright Program steer through the stormy waters of this political era. And, like shipmates tossed about by a squall, we know the answer to that challenge is to work together and throw our full and collective energies into weathering that storm.
Right now, you can join this “crew” of tenacious Fulbrighters by signing our petition and contacting your representatives in Congress, asking them to continue funding the Program at $271.5 million. Your voice is essential, and taking these actions will take only a few minutes, if you have not already.
As of this writing, over 3000 of you have signed the petition—and we want to reach 10,000. Nearly 500 have sent a communication to Congress, and we hope for many more. Writing directly to your representative, using this link, is a powerful opportunity to tell your own story to those who make funding decisions. Please do so, even if you have signed the petition already.
You can also join us for Advocacy Day on October 24, connected this year to our Annual Conference here in Washington, DC. Look for our registration announcement on May 15, and then join what we hope will be the largest group of Fulbrighters and friends ever to visit Capitol Hill at one time.
Some updates:
- Our spring Advocacy Day, scheduled for February, was cancelled due to a second possible government shutdown. Sometimes it is better to avoid a storm. The cancelation was an inconvenience to many registered advocates, and we apologize.
- President Trump eventually signed a spending bill for the State Department that included $271.5 million for the Fulbright Program. This 13% boost in spending from $240 million was a budgetary wash, however, as it represents a transfer of funds for the Fulbright in Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- Association members in New Hampshire, Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri visited state and district congressional offices in April. We thank them for taking the time to speak directly to these offices about the Fulbright, telling stories of the impact of the program here and overseas. (Inspired by this work, folks in Kentucky and Missouri are starting the process of opening the first Association chapters in those states.)
–John Bader
Executive Director
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In Memory of Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick
It is not the custom of this newsletter to mark the passing of Fulbrighters. Perhaps we should, as the world is diminished each time we lose a member of our extraordinary community.
But sometimes, that loss is so painful, when that person is young, that we should pause, grieve and remember. This is one such moment, which I share for personal reasons—and so ask your forgiveness.
On April 23, a bright light was lost, a “sunshine” extinguished with the death of Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick, a Fulbrighter to Hungary. Charity was an exceptional soprano with a promising career when, 15 years ago, she was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a fatal condition that made singing nearly impossible.
She later told the story of the journey that followed—barely surviving one double lung transplant and then another, enduring family tragedies, and then suffering from skin cancer—in her memoir “The Encore.” And yes, she did sing again, gloriously. That story is documented better than I can by the Washington Post, the BBC, CBS News, CNN, and NY Daily News.
I first met Charity when she came to my office at Johns Hopkins University to ask my help to apply for a Fulbright to Hungary. She came from a prominent Hungarian-American family—her grandfather was longtime congressman and Holocaust survivor Tom Lantos, a native of Budapest—and she wanted to study at the Liszt Academy there. It took two attempts, but she did go on that Fulbright.
Like many of us, she did not expect the experience she lived. While she did study voice at the Academy, she gained insight into the challenges posed by a repressive political regime. In 2017, she shared that experience—and her extraordinary singing talents—as the keynote speaker at the Fulbright Association’s annual conference.
In her address, she saw the parallels between the physical challenges of her transplants and the cultural challenges of international exchange:
As we engage in the communities we visit, the Fulbright tempers the immune system and the fellow is the transplant, allowing foreign to sit with the native, bringing vital tools for the future and reciprocating with a chance for a new understanding of life.
I saw her one last time, only months ago. She clearly was losing her battles, but it never occurred to me to worry or to say goodbye. It was impossible to think that someone so vivacious, so optimistic, so thoroughly joyous to be alive could ever die. Yet here we are, and the Fulbright world is less bright today as we lose one of our most extraordinary talents, taken from us far too soon.
–John Bader
Executive Director