Fulbright Specialist Program Spotlight: Laura Cruz

Through the Fulbright Specialist Program the University of Prishtina hosted associate research professor Laura Cruz from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence as part of a project on publishing in teaching and learning.

In November, Cruz worked with faculty and graduate students at the Faculty of Medicine to further their capacity for teaching and learning research. During her five weeks in Kosovo, Cruz taught classes on teaching and learning scholarship and developed educational materials in English, which were then translated to Albanian. She is also working with local faculty to establish a teaching and learning journal in the region. 

The visit was intended not just to advance individual research projects, Cruz said, but to increase the institutional capacity of the Faculty of Medicine to serve as a significant voice in global medical education.  

Education in Kosovo, like in the U.S., was massively disrupted by the COVID pandemic, said Merita Berisha, associate professor at the University of Prishtina, and Cruz’s host during the Fulbright Specialist project. Berisha said Cruz’s time in Kosovo was highly valuable for her and the students. 

“It was a pleasure to see the excitement in the eyes of the students and their curiosity towards building research capacity,” she said. 

Berisha explained that research in education and evidence-based medicine go hand-in-hand. 

“In addition to medical practice, as a teacher, research helps us to adapt teaching methods to the individual needs of students in order to arouse curiosity to acquire research skills as soon as possible, to involve them as partners in joint research and to ensure that they are aware of the importance of evidence-based decision making that affects individual, group and societal progress,” she said. 

Among the flurry of work in her five weeks in Kosovo, Cruz also helped to establish research writing groups, served as an instructor for an educational research course, described how to involve students as research partners, and developed assessment and evaluation plans for the doctoral program level. 

Cruz said her Fulbright Specialist assignment was an excellent chance to observe teaching and learning in different contexts. She said there is a spirit of resilience among the faculty at the University of Prishtina, many of whom earned their degrees as the university went underground in the 1990s during the Kosovo War. 

“There are so many things we can learn from them,” she said. “Who better to teach the rest of the world about resilience in the face of unexpected chaos than a country that has endured as much as they have?” 

Cruz is one of the 400 U.S. citizens who share their expertise with institutions abroad each year, according to the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which administers the Fulbright programs. More than 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists have earned a Fulbright award since the program was established in 1946.  

This program is jointly funded by the U.S. Department of State and the Government of Kosovo.

This article was originally published on the Pennsylvania State University website, to read more on Cruz’s experience in Kosovo click on the button below.