Rawls College Director Returns from Fulbright Program in Germany

The director of Grants and Outreach for Texas Tech University’s Rawls College of Business has been working in the area of international business for the past 15 years. But recently, he was given the opportunity to experience international business education firsthand.

Archie Pitsilides recently returned from a Fulbright International Education Administrator (IEA) program in Germany.

The Fulbright program is a flagship international educational exchange program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries.

“The experience exceeded my expectations as I was able to meet with a variety of education stakeholders such as university officials, government ministers and education administrators,” Pitsilides said.

The month-long seminar gave participants an overview of the higher education structures in the European Union and Germany. Seminar events allowed for the exchange of best practices among German and U.S. university administrators, and included university site visits, presentations from education ministers and university presidents, program development workshops and international education colloquiums.

During his stay, he shared institutional practices with his German peers and investigated contributions to success in a variety of international education program areas from both a U.S. and European Union perspective.

“The program instilled in me a passion to share professional experiences and local traditions across cultures,” Pitsilides said. “The IEA Program activities prepared me to better serve both inbound and outbound students as they seek international education opportunities.”

At his current position as Director of Grants and Outreach for the Rawls College of Business, he coordinates experiential learning activities for international business students including private industry, government, and international internships, study abroad opportunities and foreign language immersion programs.

Additionally, he said, he discovered different program development approaches that he can apply successfully to help meet the goals of the university and was introduced to unique collaborative techniques used by German administrators and institutions to establish model programs that could be replicated at Texas Tech.

With his newly acquired skills, he said he will help strengthen Texas Tech’s current international partnerships and will assist in developing new ones.

Fulbright Scholars for the IEA program in Germany were selected by a three-committee process. First, selected scholars were evaluated by a peer-review committee, then by the presidentially appointed, 12-member Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and finally confirmed by the Fulbright German Commission.

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CONTACT: Archie Pitsilides, director of grants and outreach, Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University, (806) 742-1827 or archie.pitsilides@ttu.edu.