Curator of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library Receives Fulbright Scholar Award

Theresa M. Vann, curator at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture at the University of Malta, in Msida, Malta during the 2004-05 academic year, as announced by the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Vann will be lecturing the approaches to Malta’s handwritten heritage.

Vann is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to some 140 countries for the 2004-05 academic years through the Fulbright Scholar Program. The program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. Fulbright’s purpose for the program was to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

The mission of HMML is to assure that the handwritten record of human experience, wisdom and creativity will be a resource for future generations. Over the past 35 years, HMML has photographed more than 25 million pages of medieval and early modern manuscripts. HMML continues to preserve manuscripts, promote their study and teach about the cultures that produced them. For more information, visit HMML online.

The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Over its 58 years of existence, thousands of U.S. faculty and professionals have studied, taught or done research abroad, and thousands of their counterparts from other countries have engaged in similar activities in the United States. They are among more than 250,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs.

Recipients of Fulbright Scholar award are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields. Some of the prominent U.S. Fulbright Scholar alumni are Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics; James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, and Nobel Laureate in Medicine; Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet; and Craig Barrett, CEO of Intel Corporation.