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April 15, 2009

Texas Tech Education Faculty Member Receives Fulbright Grant

Nora Griffin-Shirley will train professionals to educate the blind and visually impaired in India.

Written by Leslie Cranford

Nora Griffin-Shirley joined the faculty at Texas Tech University in 1993. She is an associate professor of special education.
Nora Griffin-Shirley joined the faculty at Texas Tech in 1993. She is an associate professor of special education. Nora Griffin-Shirley, director of the Virginia Murray Sowell Center in Research and Education in Visual Impairment and program coordinator of the Orientation and Mobility Program, received a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at M.P. Bhoj Open University in Bhopal, India from July through December. Her project is Training Professionals to Teach Persons with Blindness and Visual Impairments in India via Distance Education Delivery. Griffin-Shirley will assist in the personnel preparation of professionals to educate persons with visual impairments to become independent and productive members of Indian society via distance education delivery methods. She is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.

Fulbright Program

The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 108,000 Americans who have studied, taught or researched abroad and more than178,000 students, scholars and teachers from other countries who have engaged in similar activities in the United States – with the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic, educational and cultural institutions. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
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The Virginia Murray Sowell Center at Texas Tech is part of the College of Education.

The Virginia Murray Sowell Center at Texas Tech is part of the College of Education.

The center promotes quality research to address the academic and social needs of school-age students with visual impairments and provides public service to assist local, national and international constituencies.

The program offers master's and doctoral degrees as well as certification and endorsement in visual impairment, orientation and mobility, and deafblindness.

Most of the programs are available through distance education.