ODU PROFESSOR AWARDED FULBRIGHT GRANT

Berhanu Mengistu, professor of urban studies and public administration and graduate program director for the doctoral program in urban services at Old Dominion University, has received a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant in public administration to Zaporozhye State Engineering Academy in the Ukraine tentatively scheduled for May 11-June 24. He will lecture on public budgeting, finance and government reform and will help graduate students with professional development in their various fields.

A favorite faculty member among students, Mengistu brings international perspectives to his classes from firsthand experience, having taught and studied recently in his native Ethiopia and South Africa under Fulbright grants. He assisted with the Third International Conference on Public Management, Policy and Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June 2001, and returned the following summer to teach and conduct workshops. He also did research for an academic text on governmental budgeting and finance with a focus on fiscal policy and privatization in developing nations.

Mengistu joined Old Dominion's College of Business and Public Administration in 1985. He received his bachelor's degree from Walla Walla College, master's of public administration from Arizona State University and doctorate from the University of Delaware.

The Fulbright Senior Specialists Program offers two- to six-week grants to U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at academic institutions in 140 countries. This program aims to increase the number of those who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright, but may find it difficult to be overseas for the traditional program's two month to an academic year time frame. The 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.