CROSSING THE OCEAN: IDENTITY, TEACHING, AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR AN EUROPEAN SCHOLAR IN U.S. UNIVERSITIES
CROSSING THE OCEAN: IDENTITY, TEACHING, AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES FOR AN EUROPEAN SCHOLAR IN U.S. UNIVERSITIES

Summary/Abstract: Crossing the Ocean to ‘play’ in the ‘first’ academic league in the world can have a powerful impact on a foreign academic’s personal identity, teaching styles and approaches, writing in a non-native language, and ability to conduct research on topics that are not directly linked to ethnic/national background. In this paper I explore some of these issues from three personal perspectives: that of a Romanian undergraduate student who studied abroad for one year in the U.S.; that of a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and finally, that of a professor of inter-disciplinary International Studies at a small liberal arts college in rural New York State. The paper will also tackle identity shifts as well as teaching and research challenges as an international scholar in U.S. universities. These are merely my reflections about a Romanian scholar’s (self)-discovery journey through U.S. academia.

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