Two Penn State Dickinson School of Law Faculty Members
Receive Fulbright Scholar Awards

Laurel S. Terry and Nancy A. Welsh, professors of law at The Penn State Dickinson School of Law, have been awarded Fulbright Scholar grants for the 2005-2006 academic year, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

As a Fulbright Scholar in Cologne, Germany, Professor Terry will research the basis for, and response to, the European Union (EU) Commission’s Report that concluded some regulation of lawyers in the EU (including Germany) may be anticompetitive. Her project will contribute to an important policy debate that is currently underway in the EU and Germany by comparing the regulatory principles that govern U.S. and German lawyers, particularly by antitrust authorities. By examining the line between state and federal regulation of lawyers and analyzing the boundaries of acceptable regulation, Professor Terry’s research will be fundamental in understanding issues that the U.S. will likely confront in the future.

Professor Welsh will carry out her work in the Netherlands, where the government is preparing to launch a significant initiative to offer mediation in all of the nation’s courts and legal advice services. Under her grant, she will research the design, implementation and outcomes of the Netherlands’ mediation project, the needs it is meant to address and the civil law context within which it fits. She will also lecture to law students and researchers on how the U.S. has institutionalized mediation in state and federal courts and various agencies. Professor Welsh hopes that through her efforts, key players in the Netherlands will learn from the U.S. experience, and, in turn, that the U.S. courts will improve their management of mediation through consideration of the Netherlands’ experience.

Professors Terry and Welsh are two of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to approximately 140 countries for the 2005-2006 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Currently, Penn State Dickinson professors William Barker and Geoffrey Scott are serving as Fulbright Scholars under grants awarded to them during the 2004-2005 academic year. Professor Barker is teaching in Latvia at the Riga Graduate School of Law while Professor Scott is teaching as a visiting professor at Doshisha University Faculty of Law in Kyoto Japan.

The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship international educational exchange activity, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields.