APU Professor Mary Shepard Wong Receives Prestigious Fulbright Award

Mary Shepard Wong, PhD, director of Azusa Pacific University’s Field-based TESOL Programs and professor in the Department of Global Studies, Sociology, and TESOL, received a prestigious Fulbright Award as part of the International Education Administrators (IEA) seminar.

In March 2023, Wong will travel to Taiwan for two weeks as part of a team of international education professionals and senior higher education officials to promote exchange and cultural understanding between the U.S. and Taiwan. Wong will have the opportunity to learn about Taiwan’s education system while establishing networks of U.S. and international colleagues. Seminar activities include campus visits with a cross section of universities and colleges; briefings with faculty and administration, government officials, and leading educational experts; and tours of historical and cultural sites.

“APU has many alumni living in Taiwan, including some former students and coworkers of mine,” Wong said. “I’m looking forward to connecting with them while establishing new relationships with institutions of higher education there for future grants and programs.”

This is Wong’s third Fulbright Award. In 2012, she researched the English education system in Hong Kong’s K-12 schools. In 2016, Wong traveled to Myanmar to conduct research on language diversity and policy, specifically mother-tongue-based multilingual education and educational reform.

Wong earned a PhD in International Education from the University of Southern California, an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from UCLA, and an MA in TESOL from APU. Her teaching and research focus on critical intercultural studies, social justice and peacebuilding in Myanmar, and the role of religious faith in English language teacher identity and development. Wong has taught for more than 40 years in the U.S., China, Thailand, and Myanmar. She has conducted more than 150 presentations and numerous publications including four edited books and one textbook.

The Fulbright Program awards only 800 scholar grants per year to university faculty and administrators out of thousands of applicants in the U.S. APU boasts 70 Fulbright Awards offered to faculty, students, and alumni since 2002.

Since its inception in 1946, under legislation by the late Senator J. William Fulbright, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 400,000 people with the opportunity to observe others’ political, economic, educational, and cultural institutions, to exchange ideas, and to embark on international ventures of importance. The program operates in more than 135 countries worldwide.