Fulbright Reality Czech

Elise Wright is an English Teaching Assistant. During this academic year, she teaches English at Gymnázium Jakuba Škody in Přerov, a town of 42 thousand, located in the Olomouc Region, in the eastern part of the Czech Republic. With an MA in Liberal arts studies, a goal to become a European history teacher and a life-long passion for running, Elise was placed at a general college-preparatory high school. Throughout the school year, however, Elise has discovered another passion - when traveling across the county, mostly by train, she has developed a habit of sketching the places that she wanted to keep in her mind. When Elise shared some of her sketches at the Fulbright mid-year conference, her fellow grantees were amazed by her talent. Later in the year, Elise hosted a painting workshop at a school of her fellow Fulbrighter Bea Voorhees in Ledeč nad Sázavou. Dozens of students managed to paint a “typical Czech countryside” within a regular 45-minutes long lesson. Their results were qu...

Chanah Haigh is an English Teaching Assistant. She teaches English to 250 students at Gymnázium Kolín in close cooperation with six Czech colleagues. In her free time, she hosts an English conversation club for students and one for teachers. Outside of school, Chanah has joined a local orchestra, which performs in Kolín and Prague. She takes regular yoga lessons in her host town and has fallen in love with the sport of jumping. As an enthusiastic observer of Czech culture and traditions, Chanah had been excited about May first, a holiday traditionally celebrated by kissing under a blossoming tree. This year, however, "May first rolled around and there were no cherry trees in blossom! They had all bloomed (beautifully) back in March." With a BA in Environmental Analysis from Scripps College, a passion for outdoors and a future plan to study environmental law, Chanah was nominated to represent American Student Fulbrighters from the Czech Republic at the EU US Young Leaders Semi...

Hugh Agnew is a historian. His major area of expertise is Czech history. Hugh currently teaches at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and in his research, he focuses on symbols and rituals of Czech nationalism. He published two books on the foundation of the Czech nationalist movement and on the history of Czech lands in the European context. During the past Fall semester, Hugh taught two courses at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. His two courses for Czech history students were National Identities in Europe and Global History since 1500. In his free time, Hugh and his wife, Nancy, visited numerous sites of historical importance in various parts of the country, and they traveled (mostly by train) to four small Czech towns "off the beaten track" that currently host Fulbright English Teaching Assistants. These day-long excursions to underexplored regions, where foreigners are rare to spot, unexpectedly became t...

Osamu Okamura je architekt, vysokoškolský učitel a interpret městského plánování a urbanismu. Vystudoval Fakultu architektury Českého vysokého učení technického a Intermediální tvorbu na Akademii výtvarných umění v Praze. Během studií vyjel na zahraniční pobyt na Ecole d’Architecture de Nantes ve Francii. Od počátku své kariéry aktivně hovoří o architektuře v médiích. Pravidelně přispíval do Českého rozhlasu a Hospodářských novin, spolupracoval s Českou televizí. Byl členem redakční rady časopisu Fórum architektury a stavitelství , šéfredaktorem architektonického časopisu ERA21 , programovým ředitelem mezinárodní urbanistické konference reSITE a kurátorem výstupu evropského projektu Shared Cities: Creative Momentum . Od února 2019 do ledna 2023 byl děkanem Fakulty umění a architektury Technické univerzity v Liberci. V září 2023 byl hostujícím profesorem na japonské Tokijské vědecké univerzitě. V Praze externě spolupracuje s několika americkými univerzitami. Jeho misí při práci s český...