Dr. Alan J. DeYoung, a recently retired professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies & Evaluation, has been selected by the International University for the Humanities and Development (IUHD) in Turkmenistan to serve as Fulbright Specialist during the 2016 spring semester.
This project is coordinated by the US embassy in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. IUHD is a new educational institution, which started offering its 14 majors with English as the medium of instruction this academic year. The Embassy expects DeYoung to work with local university staff on the continued development of their specialization in sociology by reviewing their new curriculum and giving lectures to students of that department as a visiting speaker.
DeYoung will also work with the teaching staff of the university and help them develop their general curriculum development skills. This may happen in workshop settings, or it could be through informal individual consultations. The objective of the specialist program is to not only help in the development of the subject-specific curriculum, but also to equip the teachers with the skills to write and improve curricula they can use after the specialist’s departure.
DeYoung has been involved in numerous externally funded faculty development and curricular improvement projects in the former USSR for more than a decade, specifically in the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.