Graduates teaching in Austrian Teaching Assistantship program

August 5, 2007

Four students from the College of Saint Benedict, St. Joseph, and Saint John’s University, Collegeville, will teach in the Austrian Ministry of Education Teaching Assistantship program administered by the Fulbright Commission in Vienna.

CSB graduate Laura Wunsch (Edina, Minn.) and SJU graduates Mark Bublitz (Brainerd, Minn.), Erik Hendrickson (St. Louis Park, Minn.) and David Lambert (Blaine, Minn.) will teach in Austria during the 2007-08 academic year.

Wunsch, a German major from Edina, Minn., will teach English to students in the Austrian town of Schwaz, which is about 20 minutes outside of Innsbruck, from September 2007 to June 2008. Wunsch was also accepted into a Fulbright program in Germany, but decided to accept the position in the Austrian program “after weighing the pros and cons of location, opportunities and some other factors.

“This opportunity is amazing, and although I was confident I would be granted one I didn’t think that I would be awarded both,” Wunsch said.

Bublitz, a German and management double-major from Brainerd, Minn., will teach English to students in three different schools in the Lugau region of Austria from September to May 2008.

“I’ll be working as a teaching assistant in the English classes in these schools,” Bublitz said. “There are two different cities I’ll be working in – two of the schools are in Tamsweg, with a population of 6,000, and the other school is in St. Michael, with a population of 3,000.”

Hendrickson, a political science and German double-major from St. Louis Park, Minn., will teach English to gymnasium (the Austrian equivalent of a high school) students in Wels, a suburb of Linz. He will live in Linz, Austria’s third-largest city, and teach from October to May 2008.

“Personally, I want to use this opportunity to immerse myself in the culture and become totally fluent in German,” Hendrickson said. “I also want this to be a start of a career working and living abroad.”

Lambert, a German and management double-major from Blaine, Minn., will teach English to students in Eisenstadt, a city of about 12,000 people, from October 2007 to May 2008.

“It (Eisenstadt) is an hour by train from Vienna and Bratislava, Slovakia, and about 12 kilometers from the Hungarian border. Being so close to eastern Europe, I plan on exploring that region of Europe and plan on visiting friends in Bosnia. I also hope to look for summer work in Austria so that I can stay longer.”

SJU graduate Ryan Fader (Willmar, Minn.) was accepted into the Austrian program, but chose instead to attend medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Since 1962, the Austrian Fulbright Commission has managed the U.S. Teaching Assistantship Program for the Austrian Ministry of Education. A record number of 144 U.S. teaching assistants will be in Austria for 2007-08.

Two May graduates from CSB have been awarded Fulbright scholarships to work in Thailand and Mexico. Eve Vang (St. Paul, Minn.; Arlington High School) will teach English as a Foreign Language in Thailand. Carliene Quist (St. Cloud, Minn.; Cathedral High School) has received a Fulbright to conduct research and an internship project in Mexico.