Dr. Claude Louishomme
associate professor of political science, 308.865.8629
Dr. Claude Louishomme, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Rostock University in Germany.
Dr. Louishomme has taught at UNK since 2001, specializing in state and local politics, public administration, American politics and government, and race and politics in the United States. His research has focused on the political economy of casino gambling, governing at the local, regional and state level, and economic development policy.
As a Fulbright scholar, Dr. Louishomme will teach three courses–American politics, introduction to American politics and government, and race and politics in the United States – at the Institute for English and American Studies. Dr. Louishomme will also give two presentations based on his research, titled “The Political Economy of Casino Gambling in the United States” and “Politics of Native American Casinos.” This will be Dr. Louishomme’s second time teaching at the University of Rostock. He served as a visiting professor at Rostock University in the summer of 2007.
Dr. Louishomme directs the UNK Ethnic Studies program and has been recognized for his teaching and research. In 2003, Dr. Louishomme and his UNK political science colleagues received the University of Nebraska’s highest teaching honor, the university-wide department teaching award. In spring 2009, Dr. Louishomme was one of only two UNK faculty members initiated as an honorary member of Phi Eta Sigma. Phi Eta Sigma is a sophomore honor society whose student members select faculty for honorary membership based on exemplary teaching and scholarship.
Dr. Louishomme holds a doctorate degree in political science from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Before joining the UNK faculty, he worked for 13 years as a public administrator for the Development Corporation in St. Louis and the St. Louis County Economic Council.
Former UNK Fulbright award recipients and the countries where they taught include: Dr. Charles Peek, Department of English, China; Anthony Gerritsen, Department of Accounting, Russia; Dr. Maha Younes, Department of Criminal Justice & Social Work, Thailand and Myanmar (Burma); Dr. Beverly Merrick, Department of Communication, Republic of Georgia; and Dr. Richard Detsch, Department of Modern Languages, East Germany.
The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship is awarded to students, scholars, teachers, trainees and other persons to participate in educational exchange programs which broaden dialogue between United States citizens and institutions, and their counterparts abroad.
According to Shirley Green, chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, “The principal purpose of the Fulbright Program is to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of the more than 150 countries who currently participate in the Fulbright Program.”
