AFAA is excited to announce our inaugural conference, to be held Saturday 18th November in Melbourne. We plan to host one-day conferences every 1-2 years in rotating locations. Our vision for the conferences is that they provide an opportunity for our members to come together at a national event that provides (i) stimulating dialogue around pressing issues; and (ii) an opportunity for people to develop a strategy for collective action.

The theme of our inaugural conference is Fulbright Alumni: Leadership in a new era. We have entered a challenging new era, in which old ways of seeing and acting no longer seem to apply.  Leadership is needed, more than ever, on a number of fronts. The question is: how can we help strengthen economic, cultural, environmental, and social sustainability for this new global age by providing leadership to form a new agenda?

This conference will bring together leaders from across these four broad thought streams aligned with the four pillars of sustainability (economic prosperity, cultural vibrancy, environmental responsibility, and social justice). The conference will feature invited keynote presentations, panel sessions, concurrent sessions, poster presentations, breakout sessions, and social events to generate an action agenda. We seek your proposals for concurrent presentations and poster presentations to inspire action and challenge the status quo.  For full guidelines on the sessions and a link for submitting proposal visit the Call for Presentations. Spread the word and circulate our event flier to your fellow Fulbright Alumni and Friends.

The conference will open with a public salon on the evening of Friday 17th November.  This event follows in the tradition of the annual Victorian Chapter Salons and is kindly hosted, catered and sponsored by the University of Melbourne. Last year’s salon, ‘Remaining Democratic in Extreme Times’ attracted a full-house with 165 people. (This year’s topic to be determined: please share your ideas, including whether you would like to present.) This event is free but conference attendees must register separately here.

Registration for the conference is open - it's a great opportunity to register before the end of financial year!

Please contact us with any questions at 2017Conference@fulbrightalumni.org.au.

The Victorian Chapter of the AFAA held an enjoyable group get-together Thursday June 15^th in the Leather Room, Melbourne University House. Melbourne University Vice Chancellor’s office has generously made this room available for quarterly AFAA meetings throughout 2017. The meeting, held around the fireside, was attended by two US scholars, Shruti Gujaran and Raechel French and Fulbright alumni across various disciplines, including law, education, music, public health, gerontology and community engagement. The active participation by the Acting Consul General, Mr. Ron Lay and Cultural Affairs Officer, Ms. Kelli Long of the US Consulate was greatly appreciated.

In the first part of the meeting Dr Elizabeth Brooke (Victorian Chapter President), reiterated values contained the higher education conference keynote address by Ambassador (ret.) Jeff Bleich (march 3^rd 2017).  This speech contains a profound and comprehensive analysis of recent US political events and proposes an inspirational platform for future action. It emphasizes the role of universities and importance of certainty, analysis and education in dealing with political and social futures.

Dr Iain Butterworth, National AFAA president outlined recent AFAA developments and future plans for a national conference in November (watch the website for the launch of this event shortly).

In the second part of the meeting, the presentations of the US scholars combined science and humanitarian concerns which absolutely validate the intent of the Fulbright Scholarships. The US scholars showed the potential in their projects of expanding to cross-cultural domains applied in different communities. The discussion revealed crossovers between their interests and those of participants, notably in education, public health and building liveable and safe communities.

Shruti Gujuran’s project, based at the University of Melbourne focused on antibiotic resistance in hospital-acquired infections under the direction of Professor Richard Strugnell. She reported that her visit exceeded her expectations and she has expanded the application of her project to include indigenous, refugee and local volunteer projects concerning health care and educational disparities. Shrutri has completed her Fulbright scholarship and is currently returning to the US.

Raechel French’s research as an educational space planner is focused on designing school environments. Her architecture background has been fused with human-environment relations focusing on facility planning and management. In her work she aligns a school's pedagogy, its organisational structures and its spatial design. While in Australia, she is working on an ongoing ARC Linkage Project, Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change. Raechel is at the midpoint of her Fulbright Scholarship.

Have you browsed our Events Calendar? We post all AFAA hosted events to this calendar, but we would love for it to be a resource for the broader Fulbright community. If you have a relevant event that you would like to advertise to fellow Fulbright alumni, send the event details to us (admin@fulbrightalumni.org.au) and we will post it to our calendar. 

Make sure to watch the Calendar for upcoming events and login to your member profile and ensure your group memberships (for local chapters) are up to date. We always email chapter groups to notify members of relevant local events.

The Fulbright Commission has launched their Fulbright Alumni Engagement Program (FAEP, https://www.fulbright.com.au/apply-for-an-alumni-grant/). We encourage our members, as active members of the Fulbright Alumni community, to apply for these grants when hosting local events. The application process is simple and will provide an excellent resource for our members to connect with one another and the wider alumni community. 

Details of the FAEP from the Commission:

Through the FAEP small grants are available to support activities aimed at engaging scholars and alumni with the Fulbright Program and with each other. The grantees are teams of at least three Fulbright alumni residing in Australia. Applications are received on an ongoing basis throughout the year.

Some examples of how FAEP grants may be used are:

·        Holding gatherings to welcome Fulbrighters who move to a new city;

·        Running seminars, symposia or fora that address regional or global problems;

·        Creating initiatives to find “lost alumni” and reconnect them with the Commission and other Fulbrighters.

Ever wonder who else is a Fulbright alumnus? Moving to new a city and wanting to connect into the Fulbright network? Or just fancy a coffee to share fond memories of your Fulbright experience?

We hope that our new Local Contacts page will serve as a resource for these occasions and more.  We have 29 contacts across Australia and abroad. Visit our Local Contacts page to browse AFAA members who have provided their contact details so that they can serve as a resource to Fulbrighters and friends: https://fulbrightalumni.org.au/local-contacts.

The AFAA AGM was hosted in Canberra March 9th.  The event was well attended and hosted stimulating discussions around the strategic future of AFAA.  The AGM confirmed the continuing roles of current National Committee members and welcomed Peter Jarvis as a new general member of the National Committee.  For a summary of AFAA's 2016 see the 2016 report (Fulbright report 2016.pdf) and for a full accounting of the AGM see the meeting minutes (AFAA AGM 2017 Minutes.pdf). 

We are  accepting nominations for General Members of the Committee and Treasurer.  Please consider nominating yourself. It is a great way to serve your Alumni community and it can be good fun! For more information or to nominate yourself for a Committee position email your details to: admin@fulbrightalumni.org.au.

The 2017 AGM has been scheduled for March 9, 2017 in Canberra.  For more details visit the events page: http://fulbrightalumni.org.au/event-2460537.  For notification of event detail updates register your attendance and you will receive emails directly as we set venue, time and agenda. 

It is with sadness that we advise members of AFAA of the death on 28 November 20016 of Emeritus Professor Howard Bradbury.  Professor Bradbury was a founding member of the Australian Fulbright Alumni Association and served as its Treasurer from 1989 to 2004.  He was one of four members of the Alumni Association awarded Life Memberships in 2007.  These were the first Life Memberships awarded since the inception of the Association in 1989.  The awards were made to three of the founding members of the Association - Prof Bob Crompton (founding Vice President), Dr Howard Bradbury (founding Treasurer), and Dr Dale Hebbard (founding Secretary) as well as Mrs Janet Flint who was a highly dedicated and long-standing Secretary of the NSW chapter.  Bob and Dale were presented with their Life Memberships by the US Ambassador at a reception at the US Embassy in November 2007, while Janet was awarded her Life Membership by Mrs Harriet Fulbright at the US Consul General’s residence in Sydney in December.

The following slightly edited information is taken from a biography produced by the ANU Research School of Biology (http://biology.anu.edu.au/people/howard-bradbury). 

Professor Bradbury studied chemistry at Melbourne Technical College and Melbourne University followed by a PhD in polymer chemistry at Birmingham University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, he worked at CSIRO Wool Research Laboratories and then moved to the Chemistry Department at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1961. He had sabbatical appointments at Cornell University and on three occasions at Oxford University. His major research interests during this period were the chemistry of wool and keratin fibres and subsequently NMR studies of proteins, enzymes and carbohydrates. He was awarded a DSc and the David Syme Research Prize by Melbourne University, the Rennie Memorial Medal and H G Smith Memorial Medal by the Royal Australian Chemical Institute and a DSc by ANU.

Professor Bradbury took early retirement in December 1988 from teaching and research in chemistry, and since then continued to work on konzo and other health problems due to cyanogens present in cassava. In 2007 he was awarded the inaugural "$2 a day award" by the Institution of Chemical Engineers for the discovery of the wetting method. In 2007 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia.

His work on developing methods for the control of the crippling neurological disease, Konzo is regarded by his academic peers as a significant contribution to the field of biology.

Did you miss the 2016 AFAA Victorian Chapter Fulbright Salon? It's not too late to hear from our keynote speaker and from a current visiting US scholar based in Melbourne. Visit the podcast of the Conversation Hour from the 17th of November to hear from Mary Ajamian and Professor Charles Sampford.

Charles is the Foundation Director of the Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law (a joint initiative of UNU, Griffith, ANU, QUT and Jindal), and was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University (2000-2001). Mary is a US Fulbright Scholar to Australia. She has come to the Monash University Department of Gastroenterology from Columbia University in New York to research the neurological and behavioural effects associated with gluten intolerance.