Fulbright Scholar: Dr. Paul Sum

Located on the West shore of the Black Sea, Romania is in the heart of Eastern Europe. It shares a border with Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary and Moldova. Romania which is named after the Romans who occupied this region to a greater or lesser extent for over 200 years, is a mountainous region occupied by a population of over 21 million mainly ethnic Romanians and Hungarians. Romania was a communist nation until 1989 when due to rationing and purging a revolution swept the country that saw thousands of Romanians brutally killed and Romania's then dictator executed on television. What emerged from this revolution was a fragile democracy.

The United States government has an agency called the U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID). This institution provides money to countries which are recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms. In 1989, Romania was in desperate need of help establishing itself as a democratic nation. The US provided Romania with aid in the form of money and expertise and established flexible programs that were able to change with the specific circumstances as the country of Romania grew into its new government. This aid continued for 18 years until 2008, when the USAID funding was discontinued. It was the impact of this cessation that constituted part of Dr. Paul Sum's year-long research and teaching furlong in Romania sponsored by the Fulbright Program.

As a member of the Political Science Department, Dr. Sum has an interest in the democratization of Romania, and Dr. Sum has a long history with the country of Romania having visited yearly and actively studied the country for the last 15 years. For the last year, the Fulbright Program paid for Dr. Sum and his family to stay in the city of Cluj-Napoca while Dr. Sum taught and researched out of Babes-Bolyai University. Cluj-Napoca is located in the Northwestern part of Romania and serves as the unofficial capital of historical province of Transylvania.

As mentioned earlier one of the main focuses of Dr. Sum's research in Romania is the effect of the USAID agreement with Romania expiring. This funding was used to help Romanians found and develop non-for-profit organizations, something that Romania sorely lacked during its communist regime. The three basic types of these organizations are government monitoring agencies, social service type agencies and professional organizations. Dr. Sum talked to 94 of these institutions in 2007 asking what they thought about the cessation of funding from USAID. The general perception was that the sky was falling. Many thought that it would be impossible to get funding without the help of USAID. Dr. Sum found that of these 94 institutions, 83 still exist today. Dr. Sum notes that institutions like these can fail for the right reasons, and that at least some of the 11 not in existence did just that. The general perception among the organizations left is still that the sky is falling, but this is the nature of the non-for-profit world. It is encouraging that these institutions continue to exist as they play an important role in an adversarial/partnership relationship with the government.

While conducting his research, Dr. Sum also taught four classes at Babes-Bolyai University. He taught two undergraduate and two masters courses. The undergraduate teaching experience was a bittersweet one. Students in college don't get text books as copies are not available and there is no book store on campus. There is little access to the materials that the students are being taught, and at times, class consists of a professor reading a text book to the class. Students' attitudes toward education is also much different. Students will often enroll in a large number of courses planning on failing one or two of them. It is little surprise that the students enrolled in Dr. Sums classes enjoyed them so much. Dr. Sum purchased every copy of the required texts that could be found in the city, cycling some through the students and keeping some available in the department. The class was team taught with local professors, adding a dynamic element to the course as there was interaction between the professors and the students and between the professors themselves. Another thing that Dr. Sum provided that the students were not used to was timely feedback on the students work. It should be mentioned that the professors as well as the rest of the government's workforce have had to endure a 25% decrease in pay due to the financial crisis that Romania's government is experiencing. Professors are also required to handle all of the bureaucratic issues, such as housing, for the students at the department level. As a result, Romanian professors are truly overworked and underpaid. This makes it nearly impossible for them to provide the same level of education that is expected here in the US.

Dr. Sum's masters level courses proved to be a completely different experience. With fewer and much more motivated students, the courses "Research Methods" and "Social Entrepreneurship" were a lot of fun. The students in the "Social Entrepreneurship" class were required to develop programs that could be used to better society. One excellent example of these projects was the creation of a woman from Moldova, a country bordering Romania on the Northeast. He idea was to create a public information campaign against underage drinking in Moldova which would be implemented with the assistance of the police department. This is a real problem in Moldova, and this would help both address that problem and paint a fairer picture of the police, who are thought of as very authoritarian. This was one of many ideas that were presented in this course. This same subject is going to be covered in a program that is beginning here at UND. Students here at UND will be able to generate their own campaigns addressing the social problems they see around them.

Romania is a country in transition. With one third of its working population living abroad, Romania is a migratory country. It is a fledgling democracy that is still getting its feet under it. It is also one of the United State's biggest supporters in the world right now. In fact, some of the organizations that USAID helped fund and develop in Romania are now active in Iraq and Afghanistan helping to promote democracy there, helping where it is difficult for similar US institutions to make headway. Dr. Sum has watched this whole drama unfold and continues to bring his expertise to bear both in Romania and here at UND. He will be publishing a book in the fall of 2010 sharing some of things he has learned, and the new course "Social Entrepreneurship" presents some exciting possibilities. It is through the work of those like Dr. Sum who broaden perspectives and bring new ideas, that the educational experience is continually enriched and strengthened.