"This Fulbright opportunity further identifies that the Harbert College of Business is serious about internationalization."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           — Frank Oprandy

Frank Oprandy, Director of Graduate Career Services for the Harbert College of Business, was chosen to receive a prestigious Fulbright International Education Administrators (IEA) award. 

Oprandy, who develops industry relations and serves as a key bridge between Harbert College’s graduate students and careers beyond Auburn, will spend two weeks this November at a variety of universities across Germany, learning from international administrators in higher education and career services.

“I look forward to learning from others, learning how they perform within their organizations as well as sharing what we do here at the Harbert College of Business and Auburn University from the student success and development perspective, the employer development perspective and also alumni engagement,” he said.

“The purpose of the program is to build cross-cultural relationships and share ideas.  We’ll share a variety of ideas on programming, education – how do we teach our career courses? The German workforce development model is interesting, with its focus on apprenticeships, which is very much in line with our experiential learning strategy and the internships we do here.”

The Fulbright Program is devoted to increasing mutual understanding between educators, students and university administrators within the United States and those from other nations. Fulbright is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential.

Harbert College students, faculty and administrators are no strangers to the Fulbright Award. Recently:

• Brian Gibson, Wilson Family Professor in Supply Chain Management and Executive Director of the Center for Supply Chain Innovation, earned the Fulbright-Hanken Distinguished Chair in Business and Economics and spent the Spring of 2021 co-instructing graduate courses in Supply Chain Management at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland.
• James Long, Professor in the School of Accountancy, spent the Spring of 2017 learning new teaching methodologies, sharing insights to students in the classroom at Corvinus University in Budapest, Hungary, and collaborated with international researchers. 
• Tyler Look, a graduate in aviation management, had the opportunity to examine public transportation systems at the Technical University of Berlin in the Summer of 2015.
• Danny Butler, Assistant Dean for Global Programs at the Harbert College, taught classes on consumer behavior to students at the Zagreb School of Economics and Management in Croatia in 2014 and assisted the with institute’s re-accreditation initiative and offered business seminars in various Croatian and Serbian communities.

Oprandy believes that lessons learned during his Fulbright experience will be reflected on the job at Auburn upon his return.

“Learning how career services are delivered internationally, will make me better able to serve our students,” he said. “I also believe the relationships built – with peers and employers – will go a long way. I’d like to gather a variety of ideas from the schools I’ll be visiting on how they prepare their students to engage with employers and how they engage with their alumni. I look forward to getting a better understanding of how those things work and seeing if we can take back some of those ideas and apply them to what we are doing for Harbert College students.

“This Fulbright opportunity further identifies that the Harbert College of Business is serious about internationalization. Just look at the folks from the Harbert College who have received Fulbright awards in the past.  Auburn and the Harbert College have a plan, and we are working hard to execute that plan.”