VCU news

By Cassie Williams Jones

Four professors at Virginia Commonwealth University have received Fulbright Scholar grants for the upcoming academic year.

VCU College of Humanities and Sciences faculty members Les Harrison, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of English; Craig Larson, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics; and Daniel Perdue, Ph.D., collateral assistant professor of religious studies in the School of World Studies; and VCU School of Business professor of management Robert Trumble, Ph.D., will travel abroad during the 2012-2013 academic year on Fulbright grants. Harrison and Larson will travel to Belgium, Perdue to India and Trumble to Ireland.

“Receiving Fulbright awards is a testament to the caliber of these four distinguished faculty members,” said Beverly Warren, Ed.D., Ph.D., provost and vice president for academic affairs at VCU. “The experiences and knowledge they gain from their study abroad will not only enrich their lives, but expand the educational experience here on our campus in Richmond when they return.”

Harrison will travel to Belgium in the spring of 2013 to teach classes in the American Studies program at Ghent University. His class offerings will include a third-year course in American literature and the challenge of cultural expansion, as well as a graduate seminar on 19^th century American literature and the rise of visual culture.

Larson will journey to Belgium in February 2013 to work with Gunnar Brinkmann, one of the world's leading experts on graph theoretic algorithms, at the University of Ghent, to advance research on independence number algorithms. The discovery of an efficient algorithm or proof of the non-existence of an efficient algorithm would solve one of the Millennium Prize Problems, seven problems in mathematics that were stated by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. Six of them remain unsolved.

Perdue will head to India this fall as a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar. During a grant period of eight months, he will consult with senior Tibetan scholars in India, including those at the Central University of Tibetan Studies and at Go-mang Monastic College, on topics of Indian logic and epistemology as expressed in the Go-mang Collected Topics , an important Tibetan-language sourcebook, specifically through drawing on the oral tradition of explanation still surviving in India and through participating in philosophical debate. Perdue completed his Ph.D. research in India on a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant.

Trumble will travel to Ireland from late August through November to work with the business school at Dublin City University. While there, he will conduct research in the area of human resource management practices by international firms. He also will assist in the development of new graduate programs at the university. Trumble previously traveled to India on a Fulbright in 2004.

The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.