Professor Spends Sabbatical as Visiting Oxbridge Fellow
Released: December 7, 2005
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Associate Professor
shared the stage with retired CBS anchorman Dan Rather
at the Rothermere American Institute’s conference,
‘The United States in the 1980s: the Reagan Years’
November 10-12 in Oxford, England. Oravec’s topic
was ‘Before the Web was Surfed: Information Policy
in the Reagan Years’.
For most academic types, landing a guest fellowship at either Cambridge or Oxford Universities in England would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To score two consecutive fellowships at both of the world-renowned schools in the same year is the stuff that dreams are made of – at least in University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Associate Professor Jo Ann Oravec’s mind. Oravec, of the College of Business and Economics, says it was with “incredible delight and anticipation” that she spent some of her sabbatical year doing just that.
Recently returned to UW-Whitewater for the 2005-06 school year, Oravec spent the “Easter term” (from April to June) at Cambridge followed – “with a bit of an overlap”- by the summer at Oxford. “Both positions are competitive and prestigious,” says Oravec, “and placed me in environments in which I was able to work directly with brilliant scholars from the best universities in the world.”
Indeed, one minute she was meeting at Windsor Castle with Professor John Adair, the UK’s leading management/leadership theorist, and the next she was asking a question on… ‘The Jerry Springer Show’?
“Yes,” laughs Oravec, who is interested in the effects of all types of media on pop culture. “I asked a question when it was filmed in London in July.” (Perhaps a little known fact is that Springer is British by birth.) According to Oravec, “there isn’t much I haven’t done this past year!” No doubt the widely published professor will remember it as one for the books. Or, one suspects, she will write one about it!
A Chicago native – and avid Cubs fan –Oravec headed off to college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and didn’t leave until she had obtained a MS, MA, MBA, and PhD, and then taught for a spell in the School of Business and the Computer Sciences Department at her alma mater.
When she finally pried herself away from Madison in the late 1990s, she taught computer information systems and public policy at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Although she had begun teaching at UW-Whitewater by 2001, 9/11 hit her hard. “Some of my students worked for the Port Authority, which was located in the World Trade Center, and I had friends who had investment or PR jobs in the Center” she recalls of the fateful day.
The irony of the fact that she was also in England at the time of the subway bombings this past summer is not lost on her – she has had “many flashbacks” from 9/11. “Although I was not in London at the time of the two sets of bombings, I participated in the huge July 14 ‘We Are Not Afraid’ commemoration at Trafalger Square,” explains Oravec. Despite the bombings, she notes “I am continuing to travel for various conferences and meetings with colleagues. I think it is very important not to scare students away from international travel because of the terrorist situation.”
In fact, Oravec is doing everything humanly possible to convince her students, and fellow faculty members, that some of the best education they can receive – and in return give to others - is through international travel.
“The students here (at UW-Whitewater) are wonderful – they’re quick learners and hard workers,” notes Oravec. However, she says that the students at Oxford, “are connected to the world.” While it makes sense that students on the European continent would know more about adjacent countries – as students in the U.S. know about neighboring states – she says it goes beyond that, and that it gives students overseas a distinct advantage in the global scheme of things. However, she stresses, it is nothing that should stand in the way of their American counterparts.
“Our ability to ask questions, to be curious, is very useful,” explains Oravec. “I tell my students to keep being interested in life. You never know what will happen. When you travel, you connect with people you never, never would dream of. It opens horizons for the future.”
She tells her colleagues the same thing. When she first heard that she was accepted as a visiting fellow at Cambridge (via e-mail), “My jaw dropped. And it’s important to note that I was accepted on the basis of my proposal – not because of what college I teach at. It’s great to know that there is no university level we can’t reach.”
Oravec wishes that more of her colleagues would venture out of their comfort zones and take sabbaticals in far-flung places. “They (the students) want their professors to go out there and come back with ideas.”
Ideas, it seems, are something Oravec will never be out of. A recognized expert worldwide on web technology – and the psychology behind it – Oravec, who served as the State of Wisconsin’s Privacy Council Chair in the 1990s, guest lectured at Cambridge and Oxford on topics ranging from Ronald Reagan’s information policy where she shared the dais at that particular conference at Oxford with Dan Rather and author Tom Wolfe, to weblogs.
One idea she hopes to see to fruition someday is an increase in student exchange programs – and making them more accessible to a wider variety of students. She also has a “dream” of establishing a residence at Oxford dubbed the “Whitewater House” – that would house “a couple of scholars, and be available to UW-W students.” There is such a tremendous sense of history in England, and she notes that at both Cambridge and Oxford, surrounded by some of the best thinkers in the world, “You lose a sense of time – centuries, even.”
Unfortunately, she says that people in the UK “still think of the U.S. as their stupid, little child.” By reaching across international borders, and participating in world events, she hopes that such thoughtful exchange may help whittle away at that impression.
Concludes Oravec, “I’ve gotten so many new perspectives that I never would have had (had it not been for traveling)…We all know our time is limited – whatever ways we can extend into the world can help make the most of it.”
She hopes that staff and students at UW-Whitewater will make the most of any opportunity they get to travel abroad both to expand their own horizons, as well as learn tolerance for different opinions. But most of all, she hopes that someday her dream of a “Whitewater House” in the UK will become a reality.
- Barbro McGinn,mcginnb@uww.edu
