Miguel Beltran de Felipe (left) and Mohammed Soffar (right) worked with Congress during their Fulbright/APSA Congressional Fellowship.

The Fulbright/American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship Program sponsored 18 participants this year. The Fulbright/APSA Congressional Fellowship Program provides 12-month awards to grantees for the opportunity to study Congress as a congressional fellow and staff person working full time in a Congressional office.

Two of the fellows, Mohammed Soffar and Miguel Beltran de Felipe, spoke with Council for International Exchange of Scholars staff at a brown bag luncheon on April 25 about their experience on Capitol Hill.

Miguel Beltran de Felipe is an associate professor of administrative law at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Spain and a member of the legal language committee in the Spanish Royal Academy. During his Fulbright/APSA Congressional Fellowship, Beltran de Felipe worked with the House Judiciary Committee and studied the U.S. education system and its impact on the democratic representation mechanism at Georgetown University.

Miguel Beltran de Felipe studied U.S. Congress in comparison to the Spanish parliament.

Beltran de Felipe sees the most visible difference between the U.S. Congress and Spanish parliament. He noted that in the parliamentary system the officials vote in their party's interest instead of in the interest of the citizens of their district. Beltran de Felipe stated, "When I return, I can bring a different perspective that parties aren't the only way of running a democracy. There is another way to represent the people."

Beltran de Felipe concluded, "The grant is an incredible experience for anyone. It was a combination of academic and applied work which was exactly what I was looking for."

Mohammed Soffar agreed that his Fulbright/APSA Congressional Fellowship provided an incredible experience and added that it allowed him to observe how well the system really works at representing the public's opinion. Soffar is an assistant professor of political thought at Cairo University in Egypt.

Mohammed Soffar said his Fulbright/APSA fellowship was mutually beneficial.

While in the United States, Soffar has been performing a comparative study of parliamentary committees at Georgetown University and working in Congressman Jim McDermott's office handling issues related to the Middle East, specifically Iraq. As a resident of Egypt, Soffar is able to provide vital insight and assistance to the congressional office. Soffar stated that his experience on Capitol Hill has reaffirmed his belief that in this age one truly cannot afford to misunderstand one's neighbor.