Two years ago, Marymount University professor Dr. Kathleen Garces-Foley was preparing to live in Hungary for a semester, with plans to study and teach at the University of Szeged on the second Fulbright Award of her academic career.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted those plans and led to the cancellation of her award. But now, after waiting through yet another application process, she’s on her way to Hungary after all.
Dr. Garces-Foley was selected as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar once again, and has been granted a four-month award to Budapest, where she will be hosted by the Department of American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, a top-rated university in Hungary established in 1635.
There, the religious-studies professor will study the changing religious landscape in Hungary and teach two courses – one undergraduate and one graduate – on religion and American culture.
An expert in a variety of religious topics, Garces-Foley holds particular areas of research interest in the effects of immigration, ethnicity and racial diversity on religious life. In recent years, Garces-Foley has played a leading role in a nationwide study on “The Landscape Study of Chaplaincy and Campus Ministry in the United States.” Alongside a team of co-investigators, she has investigated how religion on college campuses has been transformed over the last decade.
Garces-Foley isn’t the first Marymount professor to travel to Hungary through a Fulbright Award. In late 2021, semester, Dr. Adam Kovach – a professor of philosophy at the university – was a visiting professor at Széchenyi István University in northwest Hungary.
After the COVID-19 pandemic delayed his travel, he began his long-awaited experience this past fall, and taught Introduction to Philosophy and Philosophy of Art courses to students there.