CWU geography professor joins Fulbright Scholar ranks

Central Washington University is celebrating yet another Fulbright Scholar as longtime geography Professor Dr. Bob Hickey was awarded the prestigious honor this spring.

Bob will be traveling to Hungary as a Fulbright Specialist in August and September, working alongside colleagues at the University of Pécs to develop a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) curriculum for continuing education and non-majors.

“I’ve gone on a couple faculty exchanges to the University of Pécs, and I will be working with a lot of the same people this time,” said Bob, who becomes the third member of the CWU Department of Geography faculty to have been selected for a Fulbright in the past five years, joining Elvin Delgado (Specialist, 2022-23) and John Bowen (Scholar, 2020-21).

He has been to the University of Pécs four times in his 24 years at CWU, including three faculty exchange trips in 2005, 2007, and 2011. He also traveled to Hungary in 2021, but that was a social visit.

“My last working trip was in 2011, when I taught some GIS classes and participated in a couple of research projects,” Bob said, adding that he was able to teach in English. “I speak a bit of German and a few words of Hungarian, but I have found that more and more people in Hungary speak English. It’s no problem these days, especially with the younger folks.”

Professor Hickey has been involved in the Fulbright program as a grant reviewer for many years, but this is his first time being accepted into the exclusive Fulbright Specialist ranks. He has long been interested in pursuing a Fulbright, and he feels fortunate that all the stars aligned for him this year.

“It’s a government program, so the application process took a while,” he said. “But everything finally came together.”

He has known one of his Hungarian colleagues, Laszlo Nagyvaradi, since 2000, and they have worked together numerous times on both sides of the Atlantic. CWU and the University of Pécs have enjoyed a decades-long working relationship that dates back to the 1990s.

“Laszlo first visited Ellensburg in 2000 and was working with another CWU professor,” Bob said. “I met him then, and again when I first went to Hungary. We’ve stayed in touch ever since.” 

Another Hungarian friend, Szabolcs Czigany, did his PhD at Washington State University, working with some of the same people Bob did during his master’s work at WSU back in the 1980s.

Now that Bob has checked the “Fulbright” box off of his list of career goals, he can focus on having fun and sharing his GIS expertise with a new student demographic.

“I really enjoy working with this group of people, so in a way, this is just a good excuse to go hang out with my friends,” he said.

Professor Hickey is the fourth Fulbright Scholar from the CWU faculty since the 2022-23 academic year, when Susan Kaspari, Michelle DenBeste, and Delgado were selected. Stefan Ward, Maureen Rust, and Bowen also have been selected as Fulbrighters over the past five years.

That track record earned CWU the distinction as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Top Producing Institution in 2023.