USQ doctoral student scores scholarship to America

Damien Pearce, a doctoral student in the University of Southern Queensland’s (USQ) Faculty of Education, is the 2011 winner of the prestigious Fulbright Professional Scholarship.

The scholarship, sponsored by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, was established in 1995 to support the exchange of research and ideas in Vocational Education and Training between Australia and the United States.

Mr Pearce will use the scholarship to go to the John Jay School of Criminal Justice in New York for six months to undertake a comparative analysis of police education and training strategies used in Australian and American police forces.

‘Australian police are confronting increasingly complex and challenging environments of law enforcement,’ Mr Pearce said.

‘I aim to look at how police officers are trained in the US and compare it with what we are doing in Australia and how we can improve on our education and training.’

Mr Pearce will also examine the design of the police curriculum studies, the practical training approaches used by police educators and look at how US police forces integrate adult teaching methods into education their education programs.

The prestigious Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and the U.S. Government in 1946.

In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and U.S Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra.

Damien is one of 26 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011.

Contact Details:

Callum Johnson, USQ Media, 4631 1163