You reached this page through the archive. Click here to return to the archive.

Note: This article is over a year old and information contained in it may no longer be accurate. Please use the contact information in the lower-left corner to verify any information in this article.

DeVries receives Fulbright grant to study medical sociology in the Netherlands

By Nancy J. Ashmore
March 19, 2002

NORTHFIELD, MINN. - Raymond DeVries, professor of sociology at St. Olaf College, has received a Fulbright Senior Specialists grant to the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. He left March 16 to spend six weeks consulting with the university's faculty of health sciences and medicine on their research program and faculty development and giving lectures to graduate and undergraduate students in basic courses on medical sociology, medical ethics and the health care system.

DeVries is among the first grantees under the Fulbright Senior Specialists short-term grants program. The new program offers two- to six-week grants to leading U.S. academics and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at academic institutions in 140 countries around the world.

"It is an honor to be chosen to work with the folks in Maastricht," says DeVries. "We get to listen to each other and learn from each other, to figure out better ways to approach tough ethical questions. I am also looking forward to the great food there."

DeVries is editor of the acclaimed 1998 medical ethics anthology Bioethics and Society: Constructing the Ethical Enterprise and is the author of Making Midwives Legal: Childbirth, Medicine and the Law, published in 1996 after he spent a year in the Netherlands researching home birth practices there.

He has also written op-ed pieces on sociological issues that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. In 2000 he received a four-year National Institutes of Health award that he is using to examine the decisions and decision-making processes of Institutional Reviews Boards. IRBs determine what is and is not ethical in research funded by the U.S. government that involves human subjects.

A member of the St. Olaf faculty since 1989, DeVries earned his bachelor's degree from Westmont College, Santa Barbara, Calif., and a master's and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California-Davis.

Created to complement the 55-year-old traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, the Senior Specialists Program aims to increase the number of faculty and professionals who have the opportunity to go abroad on a Fulbright.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. The program's purpose is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

"The traditional Fulbright Scholar Program offers grants ranging from two months to an academic year, and some academics and professionals find it difficult to be away overseas for that length of time," states Patti McGill Peterson, executive director of CIES, the organization that manages the Fulbright Scholar Program. "The new Senior Specialists Program offers them another option."

Grantees will also be undertaking new activities, ranging from conducting teacher training and developing and assessing curricula or educational materials to leading seminars or workshops or conducting needs assessments or survey research.

For further information on the program, visit the CIES web site at http://www.cies.org/.

St. Olaf College, a national leader among liberal arts institutions, fosters the development of mind, body and spirit. It is a residential college in Northfield, Minn., and affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The college provides personalized instruction and diverse learning environments, with more than two-thirds of its students participating in international studies.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.