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Michael Padilla, 277-1816

January 2, 2002

UNM PROFESSOR STRAUS RECEIVES FULBRIGHT TO CROATIA

Lawrence Straus, a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico, has received a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant to the University of Zagreb in Croatia. Straus is among the first grantees under the new Fulbright Senior Specialists short-term grants program.

Beginning Jan. 2, he will spend two weeks lecturing about his Paleolithic research and visiting the most famous Croatian Paelolithic sites (e.g. Vindija, Krapina, Sandlja) to analyze archaeological materials.

The new program offers two- to six-week grants to leading U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at academic institutions in 140 countries.

Created to complement the 55-year-old traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, the Senior Specialists Program aims at increasing the number of faculty and professionals who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. The program’s purpose is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those in other countries.

“The traditional Fulbright Scholar Program offers grants ranging from two months to an academic year, and some academics and professionals find it difficult to be away overseas for that length of time,” said Patti McGill Peterson, executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, the organization that manages the Fulbright Scholar Program. “The new Senior Specialists Program offers them another option.”

Grantees will also be undertaking new activities, ranging from conducting teacher training and developing and assessing curricula or educational materials to leading seminars or workshops or conducting needs assessments or survey research.

Straus is the editor of Journal of Anthropological Research. Straus has conducted archeological excavations and surveys in Spain, France, Portugal and Belgium, every year since 1972. His most recent work was at El Miron, northern Spain’s best-known archeological site. He has published a dozen books and more than 300 academic papers. He has had articles published in some of the leading archeological journals of USA, England, France, Spain and Portugal.

For further information on the program, visit the CIES Web site at http://www.cies.org/.

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