Nicolae Urs

My Fulbright 4-month journey at University of Georgia, Athens (UGA) started on February 1st, when I arrived in Atlanta. I then took a bus to Athens, the home of UGA. From the beginning, I was impressed with the UGA campus, which, even by the standards of American land grant universities, is impressive.

I met my Fulbright mentor, Dr. Tudor Vlad (picture below), the next day. Dr. Vlad is the Director of the Cox International Center, where my affiliation with UGA resided. I am fortunate to say that Dr. Vlad, a Romanian, was my first university professor in College, back in 1997. He, together with his assistant, Barbara Bond, was instrumental in helping me get my bearings, get acquainted with the UGA bureaucracy (UGA card, access to the library, institutional e-mail address, an office). He was also essential for putting me in contact with people in UGA that could help me with my research. In addition to my own Fulbright research, I was involved in the strengthening of the relationships between Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca and University of Georgia.

Some of the most important activities and research components of my Fulbright grant are described below.

1. Research on the way in which UGA helps communities in the state of Georgia through outreach programs.
The University of Georgia (UGA) has numerous outreach programs that provide valuable services to communities throughout the state of Georgia. They demonstrate a strong commitment to public service, economic development, and community engagement.

• Cooperative Extension Service: This service, run by UGA, offers practical, research-based education to improve the lives and livelihoods of Georgians. They share information on issues like water quality, agriculture, health, families, the environment, and youth through programs such as 4-H.
• Carl Vinson Institute of Government: This institute offers assistance to state, regional, and local government bodies throughout Georgia. They provide training, consulting, research, and technological solutions to help these entities serve their communities better. I had meetings with Carl Vinson Leadership, to find out more about their programs.
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): UGA’s SBDC provides tools, training, and resources to help small businesses grow and succeed. They offer confidential, one-on-one consulting services in areas like business planning, financial analysis, marketing, and much more.
• UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant: They work to create a sustainable coastal economy and environment through research, education, and outreach.
• College of Pharmacy Outreach Programs: These programs aim to improve the health and wellness of the community. They offer health screenings, immunizations, medication therapy management, and educational programs.
• Archway Partnership: This UGA initiative connects communities in Georgia with resources and expertise to address critical community-identified needs. I have taken part in some Archway meetings, in Burke county, to see first-hand how the UGA dedicated faculty works with city and county officials.
• Public Service and Outreach Student Scholars Program: This program allows students to get involved with service-learning opportunities that help to enrich communities in Georgia.
• UGA Legal Services: Various legal clinics run by UGA Law School provide free legal services to individuals and communities in need. These clinics cover a wide range of legal areas, providing valuable experience for law students and assistance to the community.

2. Comparative research on the way in which strategic documents are designed and formulated in U.S. and Romanian local municipalities.
One of the main goals of my research in Georgia has been to identify commonalities and differences between the way in which development strategies, be they comprehensive or sectorial, are formulated in local municipalities. For this I talked with a number of local officials, from city halls (Athens, Atlanta, Woodstock), to county managers (Burke), to representatives of local governments associations (Georgia Municipal Association), to NGOs (Partnership for Inclusive Innovation), federal government institutions (Washington D.C.), or faculty at UGA that work in different projects with local governments. Some of the problems they encounter are the same in Romania and the U.S. – lack of financial and human resources, difficulties in generating interest from the community stakeholders, lack of administrative capacity, time constraints. Technology was seen as a way to help solving at least part of these problems, in all discussions I had with people both in government and in NGOs or academia.

3. Developing institutional connections between UGA and other US universities and my home university
During my stay in Athens I worked closely with various entities at UGA towards strengthening the partnership that was already in place between UGA and Babeș-Bolyai University. An accord already exists between our universities, but I worked to expand both the scope and the depth of this agreement, and include in it more study fields, aside from Journalism and Communication already included. We are organizing visits to Cluj-Napoca of UGA managers to define and decide the next concrete steps in our relationship.

4. Dissemination of Fulbright research results
Preliminary results of my research were presented during the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Annual Conference, in the Section on International and Comparative Administration (SICA), which took place at the end of March. My presentation focused on the way in which digital transformation strategies in Romania are formulated and my first evaluation of such strategies in large U.S. cities. The way in which municipalities and other community stakeholders collaborate in the design of such sectorial strategies presents a lot of commonalities between our two countries (which should not be a surprise, given that the U.S. has a lot of past experience in outreach activities and collaboration between various community’s actors). Technology can also help and play the role of equalizer between municipalities of different sizes, and allow smaller communities to punch above their weight in the race to embed technology in their day-to-day life.

5. Traveling and exploring U.S. cultures and landscapes
Fulbright is not just about research and academic events. At least for me, it was also about meeting new people, experiencing the local food, trying to understand different values. For two months my wife and daughter (she is 9) were in Athens with me, and together we were able to travel to Orlando, San Francisco, and Washington. The experiences we had together were extraordinary, and my daughter was impressed enough to declare that she plans to come to college at UGA, probably around 2032.