Paul Sum named Fulbright Scholar to Romania Paul Sum, a noted UND political scientist teacher, is a Fulbright Scholar for 2009-2010. Sum came to UND in 2000, and teaches courses in comparative and international politics. The Center for the Study of Democracy at Babesh-Bolyai University in Romania is hosting Sum for the 2009-2010 academic year under his Fulbright award. At the Center, Sum will conduct research on the not-for-profit sector in Romania. The project will broaden understanding of how democracy works in Romania and provide information for policy makers about the utility of U.S.-funded civil society development assistance programs. As a Fulbright Scholar, Sum teaches graduate-level courses on social science research methodology and transitions to democracy to students enrolled at the Faculty of Political Science & Public Administration, which Sum helped to organize, at Babesh-Bolyai. Sum earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science from the University of Illinois at Chicago; he earned his doctorate in political science from Northwestern University in 1996 and proceeded to a teaching position at a university in Romania to see the country’s transition to democracy firsthand. He still holds the position of lecturer there, teaching summer courses and supervising graduate student projects. Two years ago Sum was invited to join a team that evaluated the U.S. Agency for International Development’s civil society development program in Romania. Among other accomplishments, Sum has served as country co-director in Romania for two large-scale comparative survey data collection projects. Sum has received several awards from UND for teaching excellence, research and service, and the UND political science department has received the University Award for Outstanding Departmental Teaching. Sum has been published in scholarly journals such as Eastern European Politics and Society, Law and Social Inquiry, Europe-Asia Studies, and Romanian Journal of Society and Politics. Today in Romania, Sum follows in the honored academic tradition of several previous UND faculty members who earned the Fulbright distinction. Recent Fulbright Scholars include James Grijalva, the Kenneth and Frances Swenson Professor of Law & Director of the Tribal Environmental Law Project at the UND School of Law, for Aboriginal legal and resource research at the University of Alberta in Edmonton; and Gary Schnellert, associate professor in the department of Educational Leadership, who chosen from a pool of 200 candidates to serve as a faculty member for the Fulbright International Summer Institute located in Bulgaria. The Fulbright Program is America’s flagship international educational exchange program, sends U.S. faculty and professionals abroad each year. The Program was established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. -- Juan Pedraza, Writer/Editor, University Relations, juanpedraza@mail.und.edu, 777-6571