By Karin Fischer

In recent years, the University of La Verne has played host to a musician from South Africa, a criminologist from Iraq, and a sports-medicine expert from the Czech Republic, all courtesy of the Fulbright Occasional Lecturer Program.

The visitors, who were already in the United States on Fulbright grants, spent just a few days on the campus, near Los Angeles. But their impact has been outsized, administrators and faculty members say,

"They expand the vision of our students and faculty," says Alfred P. Clark, La Verne's associate vice president for academic affairs.

Each year about a quarter of all Fulbright scholars in the United States participate in the guest-lecture program, speaking at more than 300 campuses.

Still, the program, which covers scholars' travel costs, is underused, to the chagrin of Fulbright officials, who say it is a great way for colleges to foster deeper international collaborations.

That is the case at La Verne, which is visited by at least one Fulbright guest lecturer a year. Philip Hofer, director of international and study-abroad services, says the private university often invites scholars from countries prominent in the news or those whose work dovetails with campus programming. In 2006, for example, Fathia Hasain Al-Joumaily, the Iraqi criminologist, spoke about crime and punishment in the post-Saddam Hussein era. This year La Verne plans campuswide activities and events focused on immigration and hopes to invite an expert on the issue.

Friendship and Serendipity

It was more serendipity than advance planning, however, that led to one of the most substantive relationships to grow out of the program. Marcos A. Pedlowski, an associate professor of human sciences at Northern Fluminense State University, in Rio de Janeiro, spent a week at La Verne in 2005, where he spoke with students and community groups about climate change and its impact on Brazilians and North Americans alike.

Mr. Pedlowski, who struck up a friendship with Jack W. Meek after giving a lecture in Mr. Meek's public-administration class, invited him to visit the Brazilian institution. Two years later, Mr. Meek spent a semester at North Fluminense State through a Brazilian-government fellowship for foreign professors.

Mr. Meek, whose work focuses on civic engagement, and Mr. Pedlow ski collaborated on a project examining the perspectives of Brazilian citizens and government officials on community participation in municipal planning. They plan to publish a paper on their research soon, Mr. Meek says.

La Verne and North Fluminense State, along with Fairfield University, Mr. Pedlowski's Fulbright host institution, also jointly applied for a four-year, $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement for Postsecondary Education for student and faculty exchanges.

Through the grant, now in its second year, eight Brazilian students will study at La Verne, while eight from the Los Angeles campus will go to North Fluminense State. Those numbers are significant to La Verne, which typically sends just 40 of its 1,700 undergraduates abroad, Mr. Hofer says. Several faculty members have traveled to Brazil as well.

The guest-lecturer program has also encouraged La Verne to sponsor a Fulbright scholar. The university hosted a professor from Leiden University, in the Netherlands, in 2007, and has applied for and was granted funds to receive a scholar from an Islamic country, Mr. Clark says.

Faculty members and administrators say they now have greater ambitions for international work, thanks, in part, to the guest-scholar program. "It shows us what is possible," Mr. Meek says.