Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2011 | Page 8

STEVENSON UNIVERSITY

From Stevenson University to Malta:
The Path of a Fullbright Scholar
Thomas Coogan, Esq.
What do the following have in common—a United States Senator
from Arkansas, a boy from New York, a group of nuns in Maryland,
and a small island nation in the Mediterranean where 98% of the
population is Christian (Roman Catholic) but who call their god
“Allah” (the Islamic word for God)?

an official language and used in school. The Director of the Institute,
Dr. Jacqueline Azzopardi, was kind enough to extend an invitation to
teach in the event I was given a Fulbright Award. With invitation in
hand, and with the support of Dean Joyce Becker, I applied.
While my application was pending, Dr. Azzopardi invited me to
attend the University of Malta’s second international criminology
conference in October 2009. With the support of President Kevin
Manning and Dean Paul Lack of Stevenson University, I had the
honor of being a presenter as well as an attendee. My paper and presentation discussion of transnational internet fraud was well received.
Several months later I was informed the peer review of my Fulbright
application was recommending I be considered for a Fulbright
Scholar Award. Final approval was contingent upon positive endorsements by the University of Malta, the U.S. Embassy in Malta, and
finally by an independent commission at the Department of State.
In March 2010, I learned that the award was approved. And so the
adventure begins.

The story begins hundreds of thousands of years ago when glacial
melting formed the Mediterranean Sea which carved out small islands
with tiny fossils for us to find millennia later. In more recent times,
say the last 5,000 years, the island was inhabited by builders of stone
temples predating both the pyramids and Stonehenge. Discovered
and fought over by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs,
Normans, Spaniards, the Knights of St. John, French, and English,
this island nation finally became independent of Britain in 1964. The
English-speaking island nation, the smallest member of the European
Union, is Malta (a name believed to be derived from the GraecoRoman word “melita” which means “honey”).
Shortly after World War II, a United States Senator from Arkansas
who experienced the devastation of war, thought it would be a good
idea to promote world peace by enabling American citizens to visit
foreign countries thus creating cultural exchange opportunities on
a personal individual level. Through a series of clever and fortuitous
political tactics, including funding the program with surplus military property America left overseas after the war, the United States
Department of State began funding these exchanges in 1946. Senator
J. William Fulbright established this federally funded program which
now bears his name.

Beginning in late January 2011, I will travel to Malta to begin teaching. An honor to be one of 800 U.S. faculty and professionals elected
to go abroad each year on the Fulbright Scholar Program, I hope to
learn more about the Institute, the Maltese and European Union
legal and justice system, and the history of Malta. I also am looking
forward to again eating the national dish, fenek (rabbit), visiting the
magnificent St. John’s Cathedral in Valletta (built by the Knights of
Malta) and the mysterious walled city of Mdina (built by the Romans
and the Arabs), watching soccer and water polo (the national crazes),
and taking a day trip to the Maltese island of Comino and visiting
the Blue Lagoon where the movie of the same name was filmed. Most
of all, however, I am looking forward to seeing the friends I made in
Malta and making more friends with the people who, during a period
called “the Siege of Malta” during World War II, suffered more bombing attacks than any other ally, including London, yet still managed
to survive and thrive, being named in one study as one of the top
three places in the world to live.

Only a year later, in 1947, an order of Catholic nuns, the Sisters of
Notre Dame de Namur, founded Villa Julie College at “Seven Oaks,”
an 80-acre estate in Greenspring Valley, Stevenson, Maryland, just
outside Baltimore. The school is now known as Stevenson University with the gracious original campus in Greenspring Valley and
a modern new campu ̰