CWU professor immerses himself in Fulbright program this fall

Sport and Movement Studies (SAMS) Professor Dr. Tanjian Liang became the latest in a long line of Fulbright Scholars from Central Washington University earlier this year when he accepted a five-month opportunity to teach and conduct research in the United Kingdom and Japan.

The Fulbright Global Scholar Award committee selects about a dozen U.S. educators every year to serve as resident lecturers and researchers in two or three different world regions.

One year after an unsuccessful application, Liang found a way to break through in 2026.

“I feel very grateful to be selected because they only fund a small number of scholars out of hundreds of applicants in the U.S.,” said Liang, who began the first leg of his Fulbright scholarship at Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, England, in late July and will continue his journey at Tokyo Gakugei University in Japan in November.

“The Fulbright Global Scholar Award is one of the most competitive categories, and after missing out last year, I wasn’t sure if I would get selected,” he added. “But I put all of my energy into it this time around and it paid off.”

Liang, who is currently on sabbatical from the CWU Physical Education and School Health (PESH) program, explained that he approached this year’s Fulbright application differently than last year, focusing his submission on both teaching and research instead of research alone.

“I think that including both teaching and research in my application helped me advance,” Liang said, thanking colleagues CEPS Dean Sathy Rajendran, Dr. Jenny Dechaine, Dr. Paul Ballard, and the Office of International Studies and Programs for helping him prepare a successful application. “I focused the research portion of my application on the importance of caring as it relates to creating a sense of belonging for students.”

Since joining the CWU faculty in 2017, he has found that today’s students need their professors to take a more hands-on approach than the students of 10 years ago. He explained there hasn’t been much research to date about this changing dynamic in higher education.

“When professors can show our students that we truly care about them as individuals, that also helps with engagement and retention,” he observed.

By being selected for the Fulbright Global Scholar Award, Liang joined a growing list of Fulbright Scholars from CWU over the past five years. The most recent recipient was Jennifer Green, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication, who is currently living in Spain as part of her 2025 Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholarship.

With six scholarship awards over a four-year span, CWU was named a Fulbright Top-Producing Institution in 2023. Liang said he is proud to carry on the university’s growing tradition of excellence in the eyes of the Fulbright selection committee.

“Fulbright wants its scholarship recipients to bring something valuable back to their universities, and that’s what I am planning to do,” he said. “I believe the work I am doing in the UK and Japan will line up really well with what we’re doing at Central, and I hope my research will help other faculty members connect better with their students in teaching practice.”

By focusing his attention on caring for individuals and building student engagement, Liang believes Edge Hill University and Tokyo Gakugei University will be ideal locations for him to carry out this career-defining opportunity.

Edge Hill University has deep historical roots in teacher education, having been founded in 1885 as England’s first non-denominational teacher-training college for women. Its longstanding commitment to teacher preparation provides a particularly meaningful setting for my Fulbright research on caring, inclusion, and belonging and offers an important point of comparison with teacher education at CWU.

“CWU is the oldest teacher’s college in Washington and that’s always been our foundation,” Liang said. “Similarly, Edge Hill is the oldest women’s teaching college in England, and I want to understand their perception of caring for students to see if it aligns with what we are doing.”

Likewise, Liang is confident that his research and teaching will make a positive impact on his Japanese colleagues when he travels there later this fall. Most of all, he believes his experience overseas will ultimately benefit his colleagues and students in Ellensburg.

“My research is just as much about helping other teaching colleges as it is about helping future educators at CWU,” Liang said.