UC Blue Ash Professor Earns Fulbright Scholar Grant for Research

History professor Timothy Forest is one of the few professors from the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College to earn a Fublright Scholar Grant. He is using the opportunity to spend nine months living in France conducting research in French archives that will be the basis for new courses in the college’s European History program.

The Fulbright Scholar Program sends approximately 1,100 American scholars and professionals each year to approximately 125 countries, where they lecture and/or conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields. It is one of the most prestigious awards a college professor can earn.

Forest is one of a select few professors at the college to receive a Fulbright and may be the first to earn it for research, as opposed to teaching. “This is a tremendous accomplishment by professor Forest and an important development for our college since his research will benefit our history students for years to come,” said Cady Short-Thompson, dean of UC Blue Ash College. “It’s another example of the high level of dedication, experience and expertise we see every day from our faculty.”

Forest is affiliated with the Unversite d’Haute Alsace (University of Upper Alsace) in Mulhouse, France, where he has been based. He recently moved to Strasbourg in eastern France where more of the original documents and books related to his project are located. The project focuses on comparing public attempts by the French government after the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870s to resettle the Alsatians (from NE France) who wanted to remain within the French Empire, with private attempts by the state of Texas to recruit them to settle there. Both governments needed the emigrants to help protect important territories.

Forest says the experience has been great and will help him in a variety of ways as an educator. “I really enjoy gaining a new perspective for my research and my teaching,” he said. “I find that it’s one thing to read about history and culture, it’s another to see it firsthand.”

He also plans to begin work on a book that will be based in part on his research, “It will be on the experience of French emigrants, both in the French Empire and the United States. This is a woefully understudied field,” Forest said.

This is Forest’s first Fulbright experience and his first extended time in France, although he has lived in Canada, Denmark, Ireland and Australia.

Forest also will be blogging about his experiences in France on the UC Blue Ash College blog, with updates every couple of weeks. The blog can be found at

www.ucblueash.com

.