Fulbright ON

Daris Hale, Senior Lecturer, School of Music at Texas State University
2010–2011 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Tanzania
Fulbright Alumni Ambassador

Fulbrighters are fascinating people, and it is extremely rewarding to hear the stories of their overseas adventures. Being enchanted with international tales and oral tradition, I wanted to capture Fulbrighters’ experiences and began the podcast series Fulbright ON.

In Fulbright ON, I interview Fulbright Scholars and uncover offbeat stories as they recall teaching, researching, and managing their families in a foreign environment. Talking to Fulbright Scholars is a humbling experience; their dedication, passion, courage, and wisdom are truly inspiring. They often speak of their Fulbright experience as being “transformative.”  It is through their hard work and perseverance of cultural adjustment, that they often develop new ideas and perspectives to bring to their homeland.  Each of the Fulbright Scholars encounter situations ultimately stretching their understanding of the culture; evident by them discussing the daily challenges such as buying fruit in a foreign language, convincing an elementary school that their child speaks English, and how to negotiate tear gas from approaching riots. 

Our goal for Fulbright ON was to encapsulate these adventures into short podcasts to share these personal interest stories with mainstream listeners. Fulbrighters are a thoughtful and inquisitive subset of society that bring home new knowledge and vast understanding of international relations to share with their students and countrymen.  We at Fulbright ON are very grateful that they shared these moments with us. 

I was fortunate to have the extraordinary support of Texas State University with Fulbright ON. As a music professor there, I had recorded numerous albums at the famous Fire Station Studios. With this new project, my recording engineer friends at the studio, Mark Erickson and Gary Higginbotham, offered advice, studio time, and recording equipment to interview our Fulbright Scholars. Our Sound Recording Technology students, Elliott Miller and Izzy Ramirez, also provided their enthusiastic assistance. These students acted as the recording engineers, and tutored me in the ways of their technological wizardry. I’m incredibly grateful for the Fire Station’s quality and generous spirit and Texas State University’s immense support of the Fulbright Program.

Listen to Fulbright Scholars share their stories each month on Fulbright ON.

Editors’ Note: Fulbright ON is an independent project of Fulbright U.S. Scholar alumna Daris Hale. This content does not represent the views of the U.S. Department of State or its affiliates.