[BACK]
In August 1994, when Myrl Jones arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, as a Fulbright
professor, the country was at war. On a visit to nearby Sisak, he was told, “Don’t go south, east or west of the city, and don’t walk around in the center.” He and his wife, Lorene, already had driven innocently through an off-limits, Serb-held area while traveling to Zagreb from Hungary.
Jones hadn’t asked to go to Croatia but to an East German university; he had held a Fulbright position at Kassel University in Kassel, Germany, in 1989, and thought he would like to go back to that country. The Fulbright Program had other ideas. The University of Zagreb needed someone with Jones’ credentials to teach drama, and no one had applied for the position.
“After I received the request, I went home and asked my wife how she would like to go to Croatia,” says Jones. “She wasn’t so sure about going to a place that was at war, but we talked it over and decided to go. When I called to tell my mother, she said, ‘You’re just trying to upset me.’”
Living in another country, says Jones, “your perspective on American culture changes.” In both Germany and Croatia, everyone must register with the police, and if they move, they must let the police know. “We would think that’s terrible,” says Jones, “but the people there see it as a way of bringing order to things. If there’s an emergency and you need to find someone, you can just go to the police and find out where they are.”
After living in a place like Croatia, Jones says, you appreciate the freedom and peace we enjoy here in America, “but you also notice the materialism of our culture. We have so much here.”
“We have a different sense of space,” says Jones. “We value our privacy and feel we need large houses.” In Croatia, parents and adult children or a family and grandparents often share a one-bedroom apartment. “A college student may sleep in his family’s living room, so he has no privacy, no place to get away from the T.V. and study until everyone goes to bed.” On the other hand, because of socialism, “we didn’t see any homeless in Zagreb,” he says, but now that capitalism is on the rise there, homelessness is beginning to appear.
“The sense of time is different, too,” says Jones. “I had lunch with a Croatian colleague one day, and after the bill came I got up to leave. He asked me if I had an appointment, and when I said no, he shook his head and said, ‘You Americans … !’ They don’t think you have to be busy working all the time. They take time to build relationships, just to sit and talk.”
However, American professors seem to feel more responsible toward their students than do their European counterparts, says Jones. At the University of Kassel, the secretary of his department asked him when he would like to set his office hour. “My office hour?” questioned Jones, who at home had at least five office hours a week and spent much more time than that with students. Misunderstanding his surprise, the secretary said, “Oh yes, you must have an office hour.” Soon a German colleague stopped by his office to introduce himself and said, “You must be an American.” When Jones asked why, the other professor said, “Because your door is open.” American teachers, says Jones, encourage students to drop by; most European teachers stay behind closed doors, and students line up to see them during the “office hour.”
In both Germany and Croatia, Jones received a surprisingly light teaching load, with classes set in the middle of the week. Such a schedule gave him time to travel; it also allowed him to volunteer in a number of ways, such as speaking to his colleague’s classes and visiting local schools.
In Croatia, he felt especially useful “because they had been so cut off from the outside.” He gave lessons in public schools and private language schools and volunteered in a non-government program for displaced adolescents from Bosnia. One of his Croatian colleagues asked him to help a friend who translates English novels into Croatian. “It turned out she was mostly translating Stephen King novels,” says Jones. “She sent me a list of questions, and one of the questions was ‘Who are Larry, Moe and Curly?’”
Jones also acted as a “warden,” which meant in case of emergency he was to call a list of other Americans in Zagreb. “We were always on alert,” says Jones. In May 1995, he and other Fulbright professors received evacuation orders, with only two hours to pack. While Zagreb underwent heavy shelling, they went to Slovenia. The Zagreb Fulbright program was terminated. The Joneses watched television news as a shell fell on a children’s hospital; another dropped in a schoolyard five minutes before recess.
Besides his concern for the people of the city, Jones had another concern. The evacuation took place a few weeks before his students’ final exam; at the University of Zagreb, students take only one exam for the whole academic year. Jones thought it unfair for someone else to examine his students on what he had taught. After five weeks, when it seemed relatively safe, he and one other professor went back on their own, finished their courses and gave final exams. “Our students were overwhelmed that we would even think of doing this,” says Jones. “They treated us like heroes.”
The celebrity of being from another country, the opportunities for travel and the new friendships all make the Fulbright experience so much fun, says Jones, that “it’s hard not to feel selfish when applying for an award. But you have to think of the larger picture. I really wanted to foster, if I could, long term connections that would benefit the university.”
Jones, whose interest in foreign connections began years ago when he and his wife started hosting international students, retired from RU in 1995 after teaching in the Department of English for 25 years. Since then he has continued to help shape the university’s character by working part time in the Faculty Development Center. He says he will “really” retire at the end of the 1998-99 academic year.
[BACK]
In August 1994, when Myrl Jones arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, as a Fulbright
professor, the country was at war. On a visit to nearby Sisak, he was told, “Don’t go south, east or west of the city, and don’t walk around in the center.” He and his wife, Lorene, already had driven innocently through an off-limits, Serb-held area while traveling to Zagreb from Hungary.
Jones hadn’t asked to go to Croatia but to an East German university; he had held a Fulbright position at Kassel University in Kassel, Germany, in 1989, and thought he would like to go back to that country. The Fulbright Program had other ideas. The University of Zagreb needed someone with Jones’ credentials to teach drama, and no one had applied for the position.
“After I received the request, I went home and asked my wife how she would like to go to Croatia,” says Jones. “She wasn’t so sure about going to a place that was at war, but we talked it over and decided to go. When I called to tell my mother, she said, ‘You’re just trying to upset me.’”
Living in another country, says Jones, “your perspective on American culture changes.” In both Germany and Croatia, everyone must register with the police, and if they move, they must let the police know. “We would think that’s terrible,” says Jones, “but the people there see it as a way of bringing order to things. If there’s an emergency and you need to find someone, you can just go to the police and find out where they are.”
After living in a place like Croatia, Jones says, you appreciate the freedom and peace we enjoy here in America, “but you also notice the materialism of our culture. We have so much here.”
“We have a different sense of space,” says Jones. “We value our privacy and feel we need large houses.” In Croatia, parents and adult children or a family and grandparents often share a one-bedroom apartment. “A college student may sleep in his family’s living room, so he has no privacy, no place to get away from the T.V. and study until everyone goes to bed.” On the other hand, because of socialism, “we didn’t see any homeless in Zagreb,” he says, but now that capitalism is on the rise there, homelessness is beginning to appear.
“The sense of time is different, too,” says Jones. “I had lunch with a Croatian colleague one day, and after the bill came I got up to leave. He asked me if I had an appointment, and when I said no, he shook his head and said, ‘You Americans … !’ They don’t think you have to be busy working all the time. They take time to build relationships, just to sit and talk.”
However, American professors seem to feel more responsible toward their students than do their European counterparts, says Jones. At the University of Kassel, the secretary of his department asked him when he would like to set his office hour. “My office hour?” questioned Jones, who at home had at least five office hours a week and spent much more time than that with students. Misunderstanding his surprise, the secretary said, “Oh yes, you must have an office hour.” Soon a German colleague stopped by his office to introduce himself and said, “You must be an American.” When Jones asked why, the other professor said, “Because your door is open.” American teachers, says Jones, encourage students to drop by; most European teachers stay behind closed doors, and students line up to see them during the “office hour.”
In both Germany and Croatia, Jones received a surprisingly light teaching load, with classes set in the middle of the week. Such a schedule gave him time to travel; it also allowed him to volunteer in a number of ways, such as speaking to his colleague’s classes and visiting local schools.
In Croatia, he felt especially useful “because they had been so cut off from the outside.” He gave lessons in public schools and private language schools and volunteered in a non-government program for displaced adolescents from Bosnia. One of his Croatian colleagues asked him to help a friend who translates English novels into Croatian. “It turned out she was mostly translating Stephen King novels,” says Jones. “She sent me a list of questions, and one of the questions was ‘Who are Larry, Moe and Curly?’”
Jones also acted as a “warden,” which meant in case of emergency he was to call a list of other Americans in Zagreb. “We were always on alert,” says Jones. In May 1995, he and other Fulbright professors received evacuation orders, with only two hours to pack. While Zagreb underwent heavy shelling, they went to Slovenia. The Zagreb Fulbright program was terminated. The Joneses watched television news as a shell fell on a children’s hospital; another dropped in a schoolyard five minutes before recess.
Besides his concern for the people of the city, Jones had another concern. The evacuation took place a few weeks before his students’ final exam; at the University of Zagreb, students take only one exam for the whole academic year. Jones thought it unfair for someone else to examine his students on what he had taught. After five weeks, when it seemed relatively safe, he and one other professor went back on their own, finished their courses and gave final exams. “Our students were overwhelmed that we would even think of doing this,” says Jones. “They treated us like heroes.”
The celebrity of being from another country, the opportunities for travel and the new friendships all make the Fulbright experience so much fun, says Jones, that “it’s hard not to feel selfish when applying for an award. But you have to think of the larger picture. I really wanted to foster, if I could, long term connections that would benefit the university.”
Jones, whose interest in foreign connections began years ago when he and his wife started hosting international students, retired from RU in 1995 after teaching in the Department of English for 25 years. Since then he has continued to help shape the university’s character by working part time in the Faculty Development Center. He says he will “really” retire at the end of the 1998-99 academic year.
[BACK]