Enthusiastic professors on Faculty Fellowship want an Israel repeat

'I won the lottery' on Faculty Fellowship 2017, professor says

Professor Markel planting a tree during Faculty Fellowship 2017. 

Jewish National Fund, along with Media Watch International, sends a group of professors on the Faculty Fellowship Program in Israel for 10 days of touring, learning, and sharing ideas with Israeli counterparts. Look out for reflections from this year's recently returned trip. Applications are being accepted for next year's program now. 

By Professor Karen Markel, Human Resource Management, Oakland University

I can’t believe it took me nearly 50 years, but I finally made it to Israel thanks to the 2017 Faculty Fellowship Program. Israel had always been part of the conversation throughout my early Jewish education, and I grew up planting trees in Israel to honor someone’s memory or a special event. And here I was, finally getting a chance to visit the Jewish state and not only learn about its religious history but to make connections to my profession as professor of human resource management. I have been studying how business organizations can become more inclusive to people with disabilities in the United States. I was now going to learn specifically how Israel has been making employment more accessible for all its people.

U.S. professors return from faculty fellowship in Israel inspired, and with new connections

Professor Motter, taking in the Arava Desert. 

It’s not every day an American college professor gets to talk one-on-one with doctors working on a cure for Alzheimer's, discuss video game designs with a Nobel Prize winner in mathematics, or spend time in the room where Jesus is said to have celebrated the Last Supper. 

Those, however, are only a few of the novel takeaways recently experienced by two dozen university academics on Jewish National Fund and Media Watch International's Faculty Fellowship Summer Institute in Israel, which links scholars from diverse disciplines with their Israeli counterparts at major institutions to initiate exchanges and collaborations.     

Twenty-four U.S. professors spent 10 rigorous days traveling through Israel, meeting Israeli professors in their disciplines with the same or similar research interests, all with the goal of developing collaborations on research projects, co-authoring articles, and establishing exchange programs with faculty and students. Speakers enlightened and educated the participants about Israel and its history, the Holocaust, Israeli and Arab women's rights, R&D, and so much more. Participants were exposed to culture, historical sites, the people and the way of life in Israel.