Why a Fulbright?  Why Latvia?
It’s easiest to start with the second question.  Why Latvia?  I’d never been there. I’d never been to Eastern Europe. I believed that a Fulbright grant would allow me to see a new part of the world and force me to change my teaching and ideas. I anticipated that I would find things both drastically different and strikingly similar. Like many Americans I had lived my whole life surrounded by an advanced level of consumer culture. In Latvia, I would be able to explore and live in what the EU documents described as “an economy in transition.” These differences would probably be particularly acute to me since I teach marketing. Many of my usual examples and illustrations of concepts would have to be altered. It would, of course, be a challenge, especially since I spoke no Latvian. 

As I planned to go I did imagine that one thing would be the same: I would be living in another situation in which people wanted to improve the quality of their lives. My students, at a regional public university in New Jersey, are predominately first-generation college students who attend in order to have better lives. I anticipated that the students in Latvia would be attending university for exactly the same reason. I hoped that I could help them achieve that goal, not only by teaching them about global marketing, but about other ways in which they might help their country to participate more fully in the world economy. 

The answer to the first question still continues to emerge, even more than four years after my Fulbright.   The experience continues to enrich both my professional and my personal life.  Because I teach global marketing, the first beneficiaries after my Fulbright were my U.S. students. I returned from my Latvian experience with fresh examples and broadened topics of discussion. I  also now use for my own students some teaching cases I developed for my Latvian students. I set up on-going collaborations, including virtual teams, of students from the U.S. and Latvia who communicate about marketing and cultures. (One of my former U.S. students is still a pen-pal with one of his Latvian teammates from three years ago!) 

The second professional effect was on my research.  Although my Fulbright was for teaching, I found the opportunity for research collaborations with my Latvian colleagues.  I’ve published one article to date with a Latvian colleague, and more are in the works.  My experiences also opened up a whole new field of research for me as I saw and experienced first-hand the challenges of sharing knowledge across language barriers.

The experience also had a deeply personal impact. While I had traveled extensively in Western Europe on business and for pleasure, I had not had the opportunity to live in another country and develop longer-term relationships.  With a Fulbright grant to Latvia, I was be able to do so.  I found colleagues and created friendships. I gained a completely new perspective on the U.S. by talking with Latvians.  I learned another culture from the inside out, by working, worrying, and laughing with new friends.  The Fulbright forever changed not just the way I look at the world, but the way I inhabit it.