Florida State University has named its largest cohort of Tyler Center for Global Studies Fellows, awarding nine students for their academic ambition and global curiosity. 

The award, sponsored by the national Tyler Center for Global Studies, is one of many among the Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement’s IDEA Grants program, which funds original research projects and creative endeavors for students of all majors. 

“These fellowships combine undergraduate research, global learning and mentorship,” said Latika Young, executive director of the Tyler Center. “We are proud to offer these opportunities to our fellows, who grow as researchers and global citizens while preparing for future careers.”  

Hosted and coordinated by FSU, the Tyler Center was established through a generous gift from the Tyler Foundation in 2022. The goal was to cultivate a community of global scholars who shape the future through research, innovation and collaboration.  

With FSU as the coordinating institution, the Tyler Center acts as a network of schools, connecting undergraduate students across the country with goals of pursuing research to opportunities for global inquiry. This year’s fellows traveled to countries across Europe, South America, Africa and the Caribbean, exploring topics from human rights and migration to coral reef health and art history. 

The Tyler Center will host its second annual Virtual Summit from 4-6 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 20. During this online event, Tyler Fellows from each institution will present their research findings and experiences abroad with the wider Tyler Center community. Afterward, a moderated Q&A panel will invite questions from the audience. Those wishing to attend must register for the Virtual Summit by the end of the day Monday, Nov. 10. Register here.

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A Florida State University professor has been awarded his second prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award and will return to Tokyo, Japan, to teach next year.   

Perry Howell, a senior lecturer in the Department of English, earned the 2023-2024 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award and, starting next spring, he will teach two classes each at Tokai University and J.F. Oberlin University, both in the Tokyo area.    

“Every Fulbright placement presents its own unique challenges, so you have to respond flexibly to what each particular university needs from you,” Howell said. “Like studying abroad, teaching abroad challenges your habitual ways of seeing and responding to the world, so the experience can inspire a lot of creative thinking.” 

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers over 400 awards in more than 135 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research and carry out professional projects around the world. Fulbright scholars teaching in Japan focus their classes on various aspects of American culture. 

One of two courses Howell will teach examines U.S. ideals and values as expressed in famous public speeches throughout U.S. history, such as Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman?” The second course investigates how public apologies function in the U.S. and will explore differences between the U.S. and Japan in handling public apologies with curriculum focusing on famous American apologies. Both courses will align with Japan’s spring semester schedule, which typically runs from March to July.  

“Students in Japan are, in my experience, extremely interested in learning about American culture,” Howell said. “They question beliefs and assertions about the U.S. that most American students would take for granted, which makes for lively discussions.” 

“Students in Japan are, in my experience, extremely interested in learning about American culture. They question beliefs and assertions about the U.S. that most American students would take for granted, which makes for lively discussions.” 

— Perry Howell, a senior lecturer in the Department of English

Howell has lived in Japan twice before. During the 2009-2010 academic year, Howell finished his doctoral program at the University of Iowa remotely while his wife Judith Pascoe, the FSU George Mills Harper Professor of English used her own Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to teach at two different universities in Tokyo. A decade later, Howell earned his first Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, allowing them both to live in Yokohama while he taught at Yokohama National University for the 2019-2020 academic year.  

“I have great respect for the challenges my Japanese students accept by signing up for my courses,” Howell said. “Anyone who has gone from learning a foreign language in a classroom to using that foreign language in the real world can understand this challenge — it is both exciting and anxiety-provoking for students, and it is fun from the teacher’s side to be a part of that process.” 

Including Howell, nearly 20 faculty members from the Department of English have lectured internationally since 2017. Department chair and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Gary Taylor said Howell’s continued international engagement reflects FSU’s strategic global orientation. 

“Dr. Howell’s Fulbright awards contribute directly to the international reputation of FSU as the home of outstanding faculty,” Taylor said. “It is also further confirmation that the English Department at FSU is recognized globally as a leader in English language research and teaching.”  

In addition to teaching in Japan, Howell has also lectured abroad in Italy through FSU’s Florence Study Center — he was part of the team to first offer the Editing, Writing and Media program there in 2022. 

“Teaching in foreign countries heightens your awareness of what is happening around you, so you notice with new energy many of the things in your everyday life that, in your home country, you screen out as too familiar,” Howell said. “That is one of my goals in teaching abroad: to bring that sense of energy and wonder back to my teaching here at FSU and to inspire a similar perspective in students here.” 

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The Florida Education Fund has awarded McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowships to two Florida State University professors as part of their initiative to encourage exceptional teaching and research by faculty historically underrepresented in academia.

Michelle Parvatiyar, an assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology in the College of Health and Human Sciences, and L. Lamar Wilson, an assistant professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, both received a one-year sabbatical to engage in research and training projects related to securing tenure and promotion.

“I am proud of the ongoing commitment of the Florida Education Fund to support the advancement of underrepresented junior faculty during this crucial time in their careers,” said Adrienne Stephenson, assistant dean of The Graduate School and university liaison to the McKnight Fellowship Program. “Their teaching, research and service contributions are critical in shaping the future of our students and higher education.”

Fellowship recipients receive a one-year release from normal job responsibilities and are compensated with regular salaries and benefits through the 2022-2023 academic year.

Parvatiyar’s lab seeks to understand the role of a protein called sarcospan and how it affects factors related to obesity and inflammation and can lead to cardiometabolic disease and impact cardiovascular risk. Her research primarily focuses on the development of therapeutic interventions to improve systolic function in dilated cardiomyopathies and other conditions culminating in heart failure.

“This award has allowed me to increase my bandwidth and focus exclusively on developing research and providing training and mentorship for graduate and undergraduate students working in my laboratory,” Parvatiyar said. “The timing is excellent since the pandemic eroded resources, interpersonal connections and collaborations that are incredibly important when establishing a research program.”

During her sabbatical, Parvatiyar will give a virtual seminar for the Sarcomere Society, based at the University of Washington, as well as two in-person lectures — one at Ohio State University and the other at Ohio University.

According to Parvatiyar, the McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship is crucial for the advancement of her lab.

“The yearlong sabbatical from teaching allows me to participate in research projects in the lab to make sure needed data is collected for publications and grant applications,” she said. “I will use the available time to forge collaborations that can assist us where our expertise is lacking. I anticipate these collaborations will likely bolster our publication impact and success at obtaining extramural funding.”

Wilson, an award-winning author and filmmaker, also looks forward to the time away from teaching.

“I’m forever grateful for this time,” he said. “Our ancestors modeled what’s possible if we don’t get distracted from what matters, and I’m mining those narratives in my art and scholarship. I’m crafting poetic speakers and writing essays that keep their free Black energy, those epistemologies, alive.”

In addition to being an English professor, Wilson is also a filmmaker and documentarian with more than 18 years of experience working in newsrooms such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

“The McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship has offered me time to revise my second full-length poetry collection and draft two scholarly books and begin placing excerpts from a memoir focused on the two decades I spent in the nation’s top newsrooms while I find it a home,” he said.

According to Wilson, the fellowship has allowed him to “wrestle with language that not only documents this moment’s iconic parallels with the post-Civil War era known as Reconstruction, but also to inspire future generations.”

During the fall 2022 semester, Wilson participated in the inaugural Peer to Near Mentoring event hosted by Stephenson and Keith McCall from the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Awards.

“The evening was well spent, with current and past McKnight Junior Faculty Fellows from FSU and Florida A&M University, alumni, and doctoral and dissertation fellows creating community,” Stephenson said. “Attendees fostered connections for future mentoring relationships and engaged in dialogue about research interests and efforts, life during and beyond the Ph.D.”

For more information, visit fefonline.org.

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