PLU named a Top Producing Institution for Fulbright U.S. Scholars
By Britt Board
Assistant Director of Communications
Pacific Lutheran University has been named a Top Producing Institution of Fulbright U.S. Scholars for the 2025–2026 academic year — an honor recognizing colleges and universities that consistently cultivate outstanding applicants for the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international academic exchange initiative.
“This is a great honor for PLU,” says the university’s president, Allan Belton. “Particularly for our dedicated faculty and staff committed to helping our students maximize their potential through the Fulbright Program. Like the Fulbright Program, PLU fosters mutual understanding and appreciation in our complex and changing world. Part of PLU’s mission is to educate our students to care for other people and their communities, and this recognition by the United States’ premier cultural exchange program illustrates our tireless commitment to achieving our mission.”
Since 1975, 108 students, faculty, and alumni have represented the university as Fulbright awardees. PLU’s Fulbright community includes undergraduate awardees, faculty scholars, and administrators, demonstrating the many pathways members of the campus community take to engage with global issues.
students, faculty, and alumni have been Fulbright awardees since 1975
Our status as a top producer confirms that PLU is a place where big-school opportunities meet small-school support. It shows that when you provide students with a close-knit, caring community, they gain the curiosity, confidence, and abilities to engage with the world at the highest levels. This honor validates the PLU belief that education is a call to action. It shows that our academic culture is about preparing Lutes to be life-long seekers of justice and peace on a global scale.
Notable recent faculty include past recipient Corey Cook (associate professor of psychology) and current Scholar Tamara Williams (executive director of the Wang Center for Global and Community Engaged Education). As a Fulbright Scholar in the 2021-2022 academic year, Cook reflects on how his experience was woven back into his teaching practice at PLU: “I’ve leveraged the opportunity to continue conducting international research, earning a prestigious international research award, and to lead study-away opportunities with my students abroad.”
Williams, a current Fulbright Scholar, notes, “I have seen how the program deliberately counters intellectual, disciplinary, and national insularity by creating sustained opportunities for collaboration and shared knowledge production.” Having just started her research in Mexico for Fulbright, she reflects, “On a personal note, my Fulbright experience in Mexico is grounding my work on elegy, mourning, and violence in sustained collaboration with writers and scholars working within these lived realities.”
Student awardees continue to bring PLU’s mission of global engagement into classrooms, communities, and research centers worldwide. Current Fulbright Scholar Lydia Downs ’25 is spending the year teaching in Thailand. “As a future educator, I am dedicated to creating an inclusive classroom where every student can succeed. Teaching in Thailand will deepen my commitment to inclusion by expanding my understanding of diverse cultural contexts.”
Yaden, herself a Fulbright alum, emphasizes how the program fuels both personal and professional growth. “For me, Fulbright’s impact has been the gift of perspective. My 2-week seminar in France allowed me to experience the same transformative power of exchange that I advocate for in my advisor role, deepening my commitment to PLU’s mission of service and care,” she shares.
Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided nearly 450,000 scholars, teachers, students, and professionals the opportunity to study, teach, and conduct research abroad, with the goal of fostering global understanding and addressing shared challenges. Being named a Top Producing Institution affirms PLU’s long-standing mission to foster curiosity, service, and global awareness among its scholars.