Peter Ecke spends part of his evenings studying Polish, preparing to embark in April for four months as a Fulbright Scholar at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.
A Professor of German Studies, much of Ecke’s teaching concerns learning new languages and cultures, and helping students to prepare for studying abroad and the intercultural challenges they might experience. One of seven University of Arizona faculty members selected as 2025 Fulbright Scholars, Ecke will see a different side of those topics during his time in Poland.
“The Fulbright will put me back into the shoes of my students in the sense that I’m learning a new language and adapting to a new culture,” Ecke said. “It’s one thing lecturing about these things, but another to experience them again and be reminded of what the students learn as they struggle and adapt in a new culture.”
Ecke will study in the Department of German Language Teaching and Intercultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, studying what he calls a uniquely oriented department, observing classes and team teaching. The goal is to improve a general education course on intercultural communication and study abroad, which Ecke has taught to more than 1,800 students since 2013, and create a new undergraduate course on intercultural communication for majors and minors of German Studies.
“The Polish institution has rich course offerings in intercultural studies,” Ecke said. “It’s an interesting department and I hope to learn quite a bit through my team teaching there and interacting with colleagues. At the same time, I bring in my own knowledge and expertise.”
Ecke met the department head, Maciej Mackiewicz, when he visited Tucson in 2018. He remained in contact over the years, participated in a conference Mackiewicz organized and contributed a chapter to a book he edited.
“We quickly noticed we had similar interest in intercultural communication and teaching German,” he said. “Over the years we were really looking for an opportunity for a more extensive collaboration and the Fulbright seemed to be the perfect opportunity.”
An expert in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, intercultural communication, and German language teaching, Ecke led the U of A’s study abroad program to Leipzig, Germany, for 16 years and helped students adapt as they experienced new cultural environments.
The course he has been teaching to prepare students for study abroad, “Becoming Transcultural: Maximizing Study Abroad,” will be updated based on his Fulbright research.
The Fulbright comes on the heels of a small grant from the Arizona Foundation Board of Trustees that supported Ecke’s work on international education and an award he received from the National Endowment for the Humanities to revise another course, “Becoming Multilingual: Learning and Maintaining Two or More Languages.”
Ecke said that learning about curricula, courses and teaching methods in Poznań next year should be inspiring and help improve his courses and teaching, while the he also hopes to present at conferences and publish a paper on the project. But the cultural exchange aspect is valuable on its own.
“Living there, I want to learn as much Polish as possible,” he said. “I’ll be a cultural ambassador of the U.S. people, show my Polish colleagues and students that we are empathetic with them in these challenging times, and engage in intercultural communication every day.”