Section: Academics
Professor of German wins Fulbright
Jul 18, 2007

At the Universität of Siegen, Lawrence Glatz will be working in second language acquisition using computer-assisted language acquisition (CALL) technology.

The first time was a winner for Professor of German Lawrence Glatz. In his first-ever application for a Fulbright Scholar Award, Glatz was selected to lecture and do research at the Universität of Siegen in the city of Siegen in northwestern Germany.

Glatz and his family, wife Jacque and children Alexandra, 4, and Christian, 6, will spend a year in Germany starting in August.

Glatz, who has been with Metro State since 1996, is a technology enthusiast (he has been chair of the College’s Technology Initiatives Committee for two years), so he will teach in the Universität’s Institute for Media Research. “There will be a lot of back-and-forth, so I’ll learn a lot,” he said.

According to Glatz, German universities are investing their resources in technology in order to catch up with more technologically advanced institutions around the world. “The universities have changed dramatically. Every course has an online component.”

He will be working in second language acquisition using computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology. “But it’s still up in the air as to how many and what courses I’ll teach,” he added.

While there, Glatz will also be researching Heinrich Böll (1917-1985), one of Germany's most important and best-known authors. Böll was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972 for his novels and short stories. Beyond his writing, he was a passionate advocate for persecuted fellow writers, civil rights activists and political prisoners and was an immediate supporter of the German Green Party when it emerged in the early eighties.

“I’d like to write a book about Böll for the English-speaking world,” Glatz said. “There’s not a good general work about him yet.”

While this is Glatz’s first Fulbright, it’s not his first extended visit to Germany: He lived there for 15 months in 1992-93 after receiving a German Academic Exchange Service Award.

“I’ve been studying German since I was 14 and teaching continuously for 22 years,” he said. “I had trouble deciding whether to study history, philosophy, language or literature. For me, German was a way of doing everything.”