“Building Bridges: The Fulbright Legacy and the Future of International Exchange” will be taking place next weekend, May 17 to 19, 2019 in Fayetteville, Arkansas and I will be on hand, hosting a round table on the state of journalism in the world today.
Hosted by the German-American Fulbright Commission, in partnership with the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, it’s a chance to discuss the Fulbright legacy and alma mater and reconnect with the Fulbright community. As a Fulbright alumni myself, I will be leading and moderating a World Café on Saturday, May 18, from 2:45 pm – 3:30 pm. The details are as follows.
Images and Perceptions: Journalism’s Role in Shaping the View of other Countries
Facilitator: Paul Banks, Owner, TheSportsBank.net and Author of “No I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned from a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
Fulbright Alumnus, 2006/2007 * US – Berlin Capital Program
Dr. Stephanie Ricker Schulte (Associate Chair and Associate Professor of Communication, University of Arkansas), will be introducing and facilitating the World Café tables.
What’s a World Café you might ask? Well, it works like this- conference participants choose one table to discuss one topic. After 10 minutes, the participants are encouraged to switch tables. This means that every participant will be able to discuss 3 topics in the course of our World Café. So it’s kind of like a more intellectual version of Media Day meets Speed Dating.
The conference (full program details at this link) will also provide an opportunity to explore the legacy of the global Fulbright program, including highlights of the University’s special collection such as the Fulbright papers.
This event in Fayetteville is also the final destination of a week-long road trip of Fulbright grantees and alumni across the American heartland. For myself, the timing could not be any better, given the recent launch of my new book.
There are numerous panel discussions and lectures that I am looking forward to at this conference, but this one on the Berlin Wall probably stands out as the one I’m most excited to attend.
Learn from the recent historic wink of “walls making history” (or, as some have it, of “making walls history”): the fall of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989). Unification was indeed much more, and much more complex than a merger of two divided half-countries.
Looking back 30 years later, we may ask ourselves together with keynote speaker Dr. Hope Harrison (Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, The Elliott School, George Washington University): Does the history of The Wall have lessons for us about rebuilding bridges of old, or bridging current divides?
#FulbrightGermany #DeutschlandjahrUSA
#WunderbarTogether
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, also contributes to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.