DANA HELLER AWARDED FULBRIGHT

Dana Heller, associate professor of English and director of the Humanities Institute at Old Dominion University, has been awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant to the European Humanities University in Belarus.

Heller will depart on March 8 and spend two weeks lecturing on American studies to undergraduate and graduate students, emphasizing the subject of gender in contemporary popular culture studies and media theory.

The purpose of the Fulbright Scholar Program is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Senior Specialists Program, which was created to compliment the 55-year-old traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, aims increase the number of faculty and professionals who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright.

Heller is among the first grantees under the new short-term grants program. The program offers two- to six-week grants to leading U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular, faculty and institutional development at academic institutions in 140 countries around the world.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.