Fulbright Chronicles, Volume 3, Number 2 (2024)
Author
Arthur W. Piszczatowski
Abstract
This 2017-2018 Fulbright to Macedonia to teach a sociological network society class evolved through local and global cooperation achieved at Cyril and Methodius University in cooperation with the Fulbright institutional design. Discourse and cooperation between colleagues allowed for collaborations among academic, student, governmental, and citizen stakeholders, resulting in voices linking the classroom, university, and social institutions. The Fulbright space allowed a classroom to reach directly to institutions and to be impactful on a society-wide basis.
Keywords
values • institutions • dialogue • North Macedonia • Fulbright
First Contact
I planned extensively for my Fulbright scholar award in a way that can be described as very traditional. I was going to teach a class and undertake research to teach students about network society and meetings with international groups through Skype. I quickly realized that the internet and the applicable infrastructure would not allow international meetings for a large group at this time as the university was still modernizing. Instead, together with my colleagues at St. Cyril and Methodius Institute of Philosophy, we embraced the core Fulbright value of cooperation. Entering a new society and institutional infrastructure with a deep tradition, there is little any Fulbrighter can do alone. A critical moment was our mutual realization that this is not my Fulbright but our shared Fulbright, and as such, we tested what this new institutional conduit can do. It was a natural question; everybody, including the State Department and the Fulbright program, said they were behind us, so let’s see what this new international component/linkage to our work can do. Is it really all that it is considered to be? Pragmatically, how we envision the potential of this relationship as Professors was a central question, with the motivation to think in a wider range of what was possible by the Fulbright perspective. Simultaneously, we also had an energetic and interested faculty and administration at the Institute of Philosophy. The question changed from meeting with others online and in a classroom format to thinking locally and examining how we can link up to the international from here.
Professor Anica Dragovic was my direct partner in administration, and Professor Marija Drakulovska Chukalevska was my partner with students. Over several meetings, we discussed the plan of action, which resulted in something neither of us expected. We had to change the fundamental premise of what we do as educators, i.e., we were confronted with a unique challenge. So, it’s not the classroom, and we have access to international institutions, which is a unique adjustment to a traditional teaching model. What can we do, which involves the United States Department of State, the Fulbright Program, and other international organizations, to make full use of the supportive potential we have from the university administration and the government of the United States? This changed dynamic was simultaneously a transformation in our thought process. A change in evaluating the significance of what we do and a way to have a direct impact as educators, not only in the classroom but the broader academic and external community as well.
Overall, it was an enormous transition in understanding the potential range of what the classroom can accomplish. Or what can be considered a unique scenario for educators to imagine that it is not just teaching but developing students, community, university, and the society from this experience. Being at a top university offered a range of opportunities, particularly as we could teach and work with the students to develop in a new format and experience. As such, we shed the classroom experience unknowingly at this point and created mutually a deep theoretical experience that was also pragmatic.
The Issues
First, we established meetings with students and presentations. Sociology students were involved in a class and project, but more expansive presentations and discussions were focused on the larger Institute of Philosophy. At the same time, we considered Sociology’s structure, as a science, for communicative processes and research that leads to strategic possibilities? Asking why is Sociology and, in the broader context, Philosophy and Humanities absent in the wider institutional and cultural climate for research and dialogue? While students shared across-the-board problems pertaining to the economy, job opportunities, uncertainty, and varied political perspectives in the society, other questions came to mind regarding the reasoned and structured academic approach and analysis.
In our discussions with Professor Anica and Professor Marija, we were able to establish a pattern that our work as Sociologists allows us to: parallel the public discourse of entering into the European Union; the role of sociology in establishing a platform for analysis or dialogue where there is political, ethnic or cultural division; and how to cultivate action within students who have a strong need for economic sustenance in a developing society, but an institutional and commercial environment. Of course, such considerations often find sociologists/humanists looking for any job possible, and in some cases, at a mall or coffee shop when there is a defined need for the empirical approach in assessing and addressing some of Macedonian society’s critical social initiatives. Based on this stark reality, how can we bring Sociology as a science to the core of a dialogue in Macedonian society, especially at a moment of significant consideration and contemplation of entry into the EU? How can we motivate and find work and research opportunities for students through the very education process to give them the necessary experience and international linkages for Sociological work related to the humanities, and Macedonian society so that they are prepared with those skills and experiences to be active sociologists or social entrepreneurs? We considered who we are, what we know, what issues to address, and who to contact. What do we have to learn? This is what we strived to accomplish.
The Students
On the one hand, we focused on meetings that embraced conversations with students. This encompassed larger meetings with the Institute of Philosophy students where the students in my network class would be engaged in a project. The students developed a project to analyze the Department of Sociology and to bring it into the global network, while addressing weaknesses that they perceived in their relationship to Macedonian Society, their educational experience, and the role of the student’s experience to local studies, Macedonian citizenship, and global citizenship. This was enhanced with access to meetings with international actors such as the US Embassy in Skopje and the fundamental question of how we chart our development from the local to the immense institutions that we impact. The students developed some of the following results, which coincided with the evolution of cultural and structural development with the administration (Professor Anica, Professor Maja Gerovska Mitev, Professor Ratko Duev), Professor Maria and me. The students conducted a report on the difficulties of humanities students in entering the labor market and influencing the institution and Macedonian society, changing their role from institutional observers to institutional activists who care for and are responsible for their institution. In straight forward terms: in the network, it starts from you.
The key involvement of the students is that they have an established goal and purpose and are trained to engage with the non-institutional route and purpose aligned with the global society. The students presented a paper and a presentation of their research results to the university staff and fellow students, developed a video for the presentation of the role of sociology in Macedonian society, and canvassed the purpose of self-organization. The students were grounded, imaginative, organized, down-to-earth, and direct. They began to navigate their lives and their institution and through their activity impacted the larger society and global community because they were able to analyze their relationship to the greater social construct using their deep conception and key insights for innovation in their contextual reality. For the audience present, this was unexpected in many ways, as it went against the long-developed institutional culture of a university in a formerly authoritarian society. Likewise, the project was a challenge for the students, as the flow of information was not top-down but bottom-up, working against a deeply institutional hierarchy by focusing on the importance of ideas. These ideas emanating from the students embraced the challenge of asking questions about their institution under the auspices of this project. The impact of the Fulbright linkage was that it allowed traditional structures to be perceived differently, a diverse range of stakeholders to have a role, and spurred unexpected developments to happen—a key component of becoming in cultivating our modern version of the world.
The Infrastructure
Simultaneously, events took on their own life as the institution knew of proposed possibilities for cooperating with the US Embassy and other Embassies. Still, somehow, path dependence and established practice models did not lead to contact. However, the institution of the Fulbright allowed for the opportunity for some of this to actually happen, which raised a critical strategic issue in our discussions. A fundamental conversation on how to ensure that the humanists of our institution can continue to be professional and active while practically engaging the problems of their society came to the fore. Also, other questions were evident: how to link, utilize, and engage with international institutions that provide alternative access to the evolution of self while being true to the humanist background—all while being true to developing Macedonian society wherever one is at in the global institutional environment.
A strategic assessment with the Institute of Philosophy administration revealed that access to international organizations and projects developed by foreign missions and international institutions is an opportunity to stay within the profession. The fundamental premise was to keep the humanists active in their profession while utilizing the university experience to gain research experience and activist experience. This would include the requisite skills to develop a core of empirically trained sociological (philosophy) professionals who can step out into diverse careers, but also have the essential tools for social entrepreneurship and evolution. Indeed, not by maintaining the status quo within institutional models, but through the evolution of the institutions we occupy through communication, discourse, dialogue, and the introduction of unexpected variables that seek ways to develop ourselves and others.
In many ways, this realization was made by highly skilled individuals who were curious about the adventure of understanding the parameters of this new Fulbright institutional linkage. It turns out that the meetings with American Corners, the Embassy, and students organized at the University created a conceptual conduit for tying the institutional and student dimensions together. An immensely experienced institution and staff also realized that there are other potential roads to partnership of nature and that a synthesis of unexpected possibilities has developed. In no small way, this was illuminating to administrators, Professors, and students, as it brought into question traditional hierarchical models arising from authoritarian cultures. Of course, it is clearly evident that such structures have been filled with creative and exceptional individuals and some who, despite having international contacts, have followed traditional models of hierarchy and advancement in a networked world. Such a construct requires innovative solutions based on teams and ideas, not the desire for singularities to which in the nation-state we have grown used to, and in this case, an authoritarian legacy.
The Basis for Sociology as Centre for National Dialogue
During this period, meaningful interactions took place with the Ministry of Education, Culture, the Polish Embassy, and international agencies and non-profit networks. I also led strategy formulation sessions with local non-profit leaders that illuminated the activities of citizen-based initiative. In terms of these societal engagements, Professors Mileva Gjurovka and Konstantin Minoski, Sociology professors at the University leading the Movement for Macedonia to enter the EU, influenced me from the wider-perspective. Their invitation to participate in EU planning and direction meetings allowed me to put together the empirical dots between societal evolution, Sociology’s (Humanities) role in competition with legal and business sectors, and the need to develop a dialogue with these sectors. This fostered the understanding that the role of humanists is not as individuals within an institutional design destined to fulfill its structured expectations, but instead, it can have a broader purpose of the evolution of sociology (humanities) in Macedonian society to bring discourse and activity to social scientists trained in methodological, analytical processes that through their training carry some level of objectivity to policy, and the evolution of society and culture.
In this way, reaching beyond traditional institutional dilemmas of political partisanship by creating models that map the problematic challenges before a society. Through this process, methodologically, analytically, and objectively working to develop the range of knowledge that outlines potential approaches that address the core of an issue. In Macedonia, this appears to be political, ethnic, and cultural fragmentation (authenticity) amidst the overall economic transition to a globalized/network society. Asking critical questions amidst change, such as, do citizens have the conceptual tools to prepare for reasoned evolutionary change? Is there a core of individuals who are experts in these social transitions? In our discussions with the Institute of Philosophy administration (Professors Anica, Maja, and Ratko), this is an ideal role for Sociology and Humanities to take a central role in analyzing and developing a reasoned discourse of society’s challenges by creating a framework for dialogue. For societies to function, there must be an upward flow of ideas from citizens, and where elites must adjust, and institutions must adapt.
Economics and law dominate the evolution of societal transition, but culture and a reasoned mutual trek into transition involving dialogue are equally important. This was our hope to contribute to the greater opening of dialogue and evolution of the Balkans and elsewhere through Sociology and the Humanities
There is a need for sociological (related disciplines) mediators who understand this interplay of variables. Arbiters who have the fundamental mission to present the facts and seek a balance between contexts, ideas, and ideological approaches. New variables, thoughts, and approaches are considered to see the development of societies in transition from post-communism, especially where we see an underplayed role in the evolution of educational infrastructure. In Macedonia, conscientious humanities leadership can bridge some of the factors of social imbalance. Economics and law dominate the evolution of societal transition, but culture and a reasoned mutual trek into transition involving dialogue are equally important. This was our hope to contribute to the greater opening of dialogue and evolution of the Balkans and elsewhere through Sociology and the Humanities. The Fulbright program link between the classroom, societal institutions, and international cooperation created a space to link daily classroom activity with academic theory and analysis and student and citizen-based issues with a vision for the effective impact of sociology and philosophy on policy and, in turn, Macedonian society.
After my stay, this project resulted in an International Week and an Education Innovation Conference, which replicated our initial interaction to bring other experts worldwide to Skopje. The Institute leadership innovated well beyond our initial interactions and created an educational space to allow students to gain the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need in the university setting. Or a place to incubate expertise and skills and fulfill the expectations of a diploma, but be ready to address local-global issues, all from Skopje. Together, we brought Macedonian society into the global network, much more than a college class, when Fulbright institutional infrastructure is dynamically used for dynamic collaboration to link universities, local communities, and the world.
The US’s success stories frequently include what we learn from or exchange with other societies. Courtesy, democracy, and cooperation create the evolution of a peaceful world order based on the quest for a dignified humanity. That is Fulbright’s hope, and this is our Fulbright experience in Skopje, creating long-term implications for individuals, institutions, and societies.
Notes
- The initial approach to this method of interaction can be found in: Piszczatowski, Arthur. 2012. “The Scientific Thought Process and Public Sociology: A Discussion of Three Cases in Baltimore, Washington, DC and West Virginia.” Journal of Modern Science 27.
- An interview with Arthur Piszczatowski during his Fulbright in Skopje. https://www.fakulteti.mk/news/17-12-12/prof_artur_pishchatovski_sociolog_od_sad_se_chini_deka_ima_dlaboki_prsteni_na_tishina_okolu_balkanot.aspx
Biography
Arthur Piszczatowski is an institutional sociologist who builds bridges between the nation-state and forming network society. Through institutional analysis, he builds dialogs that link theory, experience, and policy. He believes the role of the citizen is to build robust and resilient democratic infrastructure. Arthur has worked as a professor at UMD, GW, and Georgetown, and currently undertakes independent projects/analyses. To collaborate on a project, please email me at arthur.piszczatowski@fulbrightmail.org or LinkedIn.