A St. Cloud State University couple will spend time in Latvia during the 2024-25 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Political Science professor Jason Lindsey and his wife Holly Evers, assessment and accreditation coordinator in the Office of Assessment and Accreditation, both earned Fulbright Scholar Awards, which are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad.
“For me, it is always important to spend time in the region I teach about,” Lindsey said. “This will give me an opportunity to spend some significant time on the ground in the Baltics and learn about their contemporary politics.”
This contributes to the goals of the It’s Time strategic framework, showcasing Lindsey’s work abroad as a teacher-scholar while expanding the University’s global relationships.
The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program and plays a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations.
Lindsey and Evers have been at SCSU since 2004, and they previously spent a year in Latvia in 1999-2000 through the Soros Foundation. In Latvia Lindsey taught political science at a college, while Holly taught a beginning Spanish class and also taught English to adults through the British Council.
Returning 25 years later, Lindsey will teach about US political polarization in Riga at Latvia University, while Evers will teach English in Riga at a local college or high school.
“Jason and I have long been involved with Fulbright, supporting students when they arrive and during their time at SCSU,” Evers said. “We reach out regularly and host events for them—like Thanksgiving. I wanted to challenge myself with purposeful work and share the blessings that I take for granted far too often.”
Evers also credits SCSU’s English department for preparing her with Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) courses. The couple has already begun daily four-hour intensive online Latvian language courses offered by Indiana University to prepare, and they will leave for Latvia in late August.
“This is another opportunity for me to teach a foreign audience about the U.S. political system,” Lindsey added. “Our contemporary politics are complicated for an external audience because of the cultural turn they have taken. This is a chance to reach out to an audience of future social leaders in the region and give them a better understanding of the U.S.”
Alumni of the Fulbright Program include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and thousands of leaders and world-renowned experts in academia and many other fields across the private, public and non-profit sectors.
Fulbright scholars form ongoing research collaborations also lay the groundwork for future partnerships between institutions. More information about the Fulbright Program can be found on their website.
