Law School's Career Development Director Earns Fulbright
December 17, 2010
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.6190
Astrid Schmidt, J.D. '02, director of the Law Career Development Office in the University of Baltimore School of Law, was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to study Germany's higher education system as it pertains to those American university, college and community college administrators whose current responsibilities have a direct relationship with international exchanges, career services, alumni affairs or development and fundraising in higher education. Schmidt recently returned from an extended tour of Berlin and other German cities including Dortmund, Hamburg and Mainz, where she and her fellow Fulbright recipients examined the unique characteristics of the German system for higher learning.
Schmidt's award for the U.S.-Germany International Education Administrators Program was made by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board; the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State oversees the program.
The program included briefings, selected government appointments, campus visits and cultural events. It featured an introduction to Germany and its system of higher education, followed by focused attention on those aspects of the system in which the Fulbright recipients are versed.
Schmidt is one of approximately 1,100 U.S. faculty and professionals who are traveling abroad this year through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.
Schmidt holds an LL.M. in law and government from American University's Washington College of Law, a J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law, and a bachelor of arts degree in international relations from New York University's Gallatin School for Individualized Studies.
The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 286,500 people—108,160 Americans who have studied, taught or researched abroad and 178,340 students, scholars and teachers from other countries who have engaged in similar activities in the United States—with the opportunity to observe each others' political, economic, educational and cultural institutions, to exchange ideas and to embark on joint ventures of importance to the general welfare of the world's inhabitants. The program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. Among the thousands of prominent Fulbright alumni are: Muhammad Yunus, managing director and founder of Grameen Bank and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006; Javier Solana, foreign policy chief of the European Union; Ruth Simmons, president of Brown University; Craig Barrett, chairman of the board, Intel Corporation; Shamshad Akhtar, the first woman to hold the position of governor of the State Bank of Pakistan; Alejandro Jara, deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization; Raoul Cantero, justice in the Florida Supreme Court; Renee Fleming, soprano; Gish Jen, writer; Daniel Libeskind, architect; Aneesh Raman, CNN Middle East correspondent; and Sibusiso Sibisi, president and CEO of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa.
Fulbright recipients are among more than 40,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than 60 years, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has supported programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and those of other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the School of Law, the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Public Affairs and the Merrick School of Business.