Wildermuth wins Davis Fellowship for summer study

David Wildermuth, a lecturer in German at Skidmore College, has received a Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace to attend classes this summer at Middlebury College and further his work on his doctoral degree.

The fellowship program, formally titled the Kathryn Davis Fellowships for Peace: Investing in the Study of Critical Language, are designated for the study of Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian. The merit-based fellowships cover tuition, fees, and living expenses. Enrollment in Middlebury?s intensive summer program is the equivalent of a full year of language study on the college level.

Wildermuth will continue his study of Russian, which he began in 1991 while an undergraduate. He said he undertook the language ?because it presented a more immediate picture of the Cold War enemy. I wanted to know more about this people, their language and culture, to understand if there were really any irreconcilable differences. I have learned that there aren?t, and that it is critical to foster intercultural dialogue as the proven way to promote peace and understanding.?

Cultural literacy of one?s home country is strengthened when one learns more about the customs and language of another country, according to Wildermuth. He fosters his students? curiosity about intercultural communication. ?I encourage them that it?s not only OK to question your culture and identity, it?s healthy,? he said.

The summer of 2008 will be the second successive summer that finds Wildermuth in the classroom. In 2007, as the recipient of a Fulbright German Studies Seminar Grant, he spent two weeks in Berlin, participating in ?Germany in a Changing Europe: Transatlantic Ties, Transatlantic Challenges.? The program provided insight on the organization of European politics, the development of common economic markets, the shaping of European cultural profiles and the formation of a uniform higher education arena.

Seminar participants met with officials of the German Bundestag (parliament), church, educational, and business leaders, and representatives of the German foreign office.

Said Wildermuth, ?Although recent German public opinion of America had been quite low, there is a new commitment among the German leadership to reinvigorate the old ties between the two countries, ties that are not only historically important, but mutually beneficial as well.?

A Skidmore faculty member since 2004, Wildermuth advises Skidmore?s Model U.N. Program in addition to his teaching responsibilities.