Fulbright helps UC scholar build new passion in old Greece

Annual Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as record of service and leadership potential in their respective fields.

In addition to Bright, UC received five total Fulbright Student Scholarships for 2019-20 through UC's Office of Nationally Competitive Awards. Additional recipients include Garrett Ainsworth, who will teach English in Taiwan; Brian Nabors, CCM doctoral student who will perform musical composition research in Sydney, Australia; Andrea Ori, who will work in biophysics at the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris; and Chloe Elleman, who received a UK summer institute grant. The students’ pursuit of academic excellence while using their leadership skills to make an impact in the world represent tenets of UC’s strategic direction called Next Lives Here.

“My admiration of Greece and its culture does not end in history books,” says Bright. “Working with the Hellenic American Educational Foundation (HAEF) in Athens for the next academic year seems more like a surreal twist of fate.”

As part of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship program this year, 13 U.S. scholars are going to Athens and will all live together in a residential complex. In addition to teaching English at HAEF during the day, Bright says she will also coach a debate team as well as a comedy and drama club after-school program, all in English.

Bright’s interest in Greek history took root in high school where she says her studies in Greek literature and mythology made the culture come to life.

“As I read ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer, Greece seemed like a beautiful, magical, fictional place, and my fascination for Greek mythology grew like wildfire,” she says. “I was obsessed with these dark, fantastical, fairy-tale stories and intrigued that a country had such beautiful tales as part of its history.

“They incorporate the old with the new so well there so the Fulbright trip feels like a great fit for learning about another culture.”

As a UC undergrad, Bright was an accomplished Cincinnatus and College of Education scholar, a CECH ambassador and a member of the Pi Beta Phi fraternity for women. 

In her spare time she taught adult literacy classes, tutored local children through UC's Bearcat Buddies program and was a chess instructor to Cincinnati Public School third through fifth graders as part of the Chris Collinsworth ProScan Fund.  

“My school in Chicago is about 98% Hispanic students, so that sparked my interest in traveling,” says Bright. “I have never worked with students who spoke a different language. Here they mostly speak Spanish, but I don’t speak Spanish so they speak English to me. 

“While it was a bit overwhelming at first I quickly enjoyed being ‘an outsider’ as they call me. I eventually felt comfortable learning to pick up so many different customs.”

As a Fulbright fellow in Greece, Bright says she looks forward to the opportunity to interact with students in the classroom and through its forensics club. Students learn best when they feel a genuine connection with their teacher, she says, so developing a mentorship with her students will hopefully lead to success in and outside the classroom. 

“The Hellenic American Educational Foundation has continued to provide cross-cultural experiences to students, while simultaneously building a strong community,” says Bright. “I look forward to being surrounded by people passionate about changing this world for the better through education.

“It is our role as educators to not only teach students proper grammar but to teach them how to be successful, contributing members of society, and this task starts with us.” 

As Bright makes plans to start a chess program with the students in Greece, she hopes to teach college students to help high school students and high school students to help elementary school students learn to love the logic and competitive skills within the game. 

“This program would not only teach the students a new skill but would develop a sense of mentorship between different age groups — a positive legacy I hope to leave in Athens, as well as bring back to my students at home,” she says.