College hosts Fulbright scholar

Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU -- Mat-Su College has received funding to host a visiting Fulbright scholar in January 2005. College Director Paul Dauphinais said the scholar will likely be an artist in the fiber arts and hopefully from South America.

Fiber artists specialize in quilts, prints, rug making, fiber tapestries, baskets and other items. The artist coming to Mat-Su College, however, is yet to be determined.

"The scholar is approved but we don't know who it will be," Dauphinais said.

For more than 50 years, the Council for International Exchange of Scholars has helped administer the Fulbright Scholar Program, a prestigious academic exchange effort funded by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Founded in 1947, the scholar program annually recruits and sends nearly 800 U.S. faculty and professionals to 140 countries, while bringing 800 foreign faculty and professionals to the U.S.

In past years, the weaving program at the college has been popular with 117 students enrolled in weaving and fiber arts classes between the fall of 1999 and the spring semester of 2003, not including summer session students.

Last year, however, Dauphinais said the college had to cancel the program for one year to use the classrooms for other purposes.

"We know there was a big interest in the program but we had to move a dozen looms out of a classroom so we could use it for a class of 30 students," Dauphinais said. "That's not the route we wanted to take but we had to do it for economic reasons."

Dauphinais said he is pleased to bring the weaving program back this year. Currently there are three students in the weaving program but Dauphinais said he expects the numbers will climb back up as soon a word get out.

"If there is an interest in the community, we should be providing that," he said.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.