Webster University Director General for Global Campuses Ryan Guffey Selected as a Fulbright Specialist

Webster University’s Director General for Global Campuses Ryan Guffey, PhD, was selected to receive the Fulbright Specialist Program award through the United States State Department and Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. The Fulbright Specialist Program provides senior U.S. academics the opportunity to work with higher education institutions and government agencies across the globe. 

Guffey will serve as a consultant to the Uzbekistan Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation to develop academic construction plans for a globally competitive research university infrastructure. The title of his project is “Designing a World-Class University Campus for the Future.”

“As Director-General for all Webster's international campuses, Ryan is responsible for ensuring that Webster's mission and values are the foundation for all of the University's international partnerships,” said Webster University Chancellor Tim Keane. “Through this award, Ryan has a unique opportunity to advance Webster's mission with our and the nation’s students in Uzbekistan. Congratulations to Ryan for earning this prestigious award."

“The Republic of Uzbekistan has initiated a bold plan to become the leading educational hub in Central Asia and has invested significantly to make that mission a reality,” Guffey said. “This is a great honor for me personally, but also professionally, as this project will greatly support Webster’s international expansion plans as it develops future sustainable locations globally.”

As part of the project, Guffey will provide policy recommendations to optimize purpose-built construction options; lead seminars on topics related to physical academic space optimization, campus research management and storage, fostering scientific internationalization; and proposing standards for knowledge and technology transfer. The project will occur in January 2025.

This is Guffey’s second Fulbright. In 2012, he was awarded the teaching and consultation award to Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. There, he taught doctoral courses in comparative and international education and conducted studies on multiple universities’ quality assurance and governance mechanisms. 

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State- Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. In addition, participating governments, and host institutions along with corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States provide direct and indirect support. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 60 Nobel Prizes, 88 Pulitzer Prizes, and 39 heads of state.