Douglas Owens Receives Fulbright DAAD to Leipzig

Douglas Owens

GENESEO, N.Y. – SUNY Geneseo faculty member Douglas Owens has received a Fulbright German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) award to attend the summer academy in Leipzig for U.S.-American faculty in German Studies.

Owens, who teaches German in the Department of Languages and Literatures, will participate in the academy from May 27 – June 10 and will receive a closer view of Germanys’ current education, society and culture. The seminar is based at interDaF at Leipzig University’s Herder Institute and will be presented in German. Owens also will be in Germany to witness the 2017 elections.

“I was surprised and grateful at the same time when I received the acceptance notice,” said Owens. “I have said to myself over my academic and professional career, you can't tell if a door will open unless you try. The two weeks of classes, excursions, networking, and immersion in the language and culture should be intellectually stimulating, rewarding, and help with my Wanderlust. More importantly though, this award has helped me appreciate those that assisted and encouraged me at home and at the university; we have a special community here at SUNY Geneseo.”

The German-American Fulbright Program implements Senator J. William Fulbright's visionary concept: The promotion of mutual understanding between the two countries through academic and bicultural exchange.

The Fulbright Program has international outreach, providing exchanges between the United States and over 160 countries and territories worldwide. Currently, 50 permanent commissions support the work of the Fulbright Program on the binational level, among them the German-American Commission. Annually about 8,000 scholars, American and foreign, participate in the Fulbright exchange. Since the inception of the Fulbright Program in 1946, it has sponsored approximately 310,000 scholars.