December 10, 2001

Ramapo Professor Walter T. Brown Receives A Fifth Fulbright Award
His daughter, Kara Brown, is also a Fulbright Scholar

(Mahwah) -- Dr. Walter T. Brown, a professor of history and international studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant through the United States Department of State. This is his fifth Fulbright Award, with three previous awards funded through the U.S. Department of Education and one through State. All of his Fulbright research deals with the subject of Muslim minority populations, their culture and politics. His upcoming Fulbright Scholar grant will support teaching and research at the Institute of Asia and Africa in Tbilisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia from September 2001 through June 2002. Brown co-directs the Ramapo Winter Term Program in Prague.
Through an unusual coincidence that may be a first, Brown’s daughter, Kara Brown, recently received a Fulbright Scholar grant through the Department of State and a Fulblright/Hays award through the Department of Education. She has completed all course requirements for the Ph.D. at Indiana University and through the back-to-back Fulbrights is pursuing Ph.D. research in Estonia through August 2002.

Walter Brown spent five months in South Africa and two in England during the spring/summer of 1997 conducting field and archival research on his project, "Muslims in South Africa: A Social and Political History." Long interested in South African history, Brown’s vocal and written opposition to apartheid prevented him from visiting the country. In May 1993, when Nobel Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu received an honorary degree at Ramapo, Brown conferred with him about South Africa’s future and Brown’s particular interest in the history of Muslims as a minority in a predominantly Christian nation. When South Africa’s first free election resulted in a presidential victory for Nelson Mandela and the end of white minority rule, research opportunities for scholars immediately opened in this dynamic, multiracial, multicultural nation of 43 million.

Prior to his work in South Africa, Brown was named a Fulbright Scholar in 1967, 1976 and 1982 for projects in Tanzania, Nigeria and Kenya respectively. In addition, he participated in four Fulbright-sponsored Group Projects Abroad, short-term programs in Senegal and Ghana (1973), India (1980), Jamaica (1985) and Japan (1990).

Brown also was selected by Yale University for a U.S. Department of Education Title VI-sponsored seminar, ‘Russia and the World: Toward the Next Century." The intensive two-week seminar enabled him to focus on the foreign policies of Russia (since the demise of the U.S.S.R.) toward South Africa and The Czech Republic.