Social Impact can encompass a wide range of ideas and projects that positively affect the communities we live in.
We are delighted to showcase various Fulbright alumni working with art, music, science,
and public health projects that are contributing to a better world.

 

A series by Leslie Kutsenkow (Fulbright Intern, Summer 2023)

 

 

 

Fulbright alumnus, Mike Broida, a 2018 Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grantee, is still utilizing what he learned in Portugal in his current role as a Senior Executive Speechwriter for Mayo Clinic, the world’s leading  integrated not-for profit group medical practice.

We have highlighted various writers during the Fulbright Impact series from the United States and Portugal, but Mike’s testimony also demonstrates the impact of cultural exchange on society. Mike taught English, a mini course on American culture, and worked with Erasmus students at the Instituto Politécnico do Porto, School of Technology and Management (ESTG), in Felgueiras, Portugal.

 

«To me the advantage of living in a place like Felgueiras… which is an industrial and farming city… has been the ability to grow my cultural acuity and to use my Portuguese language skills as well as to feel a part of a tight knit community. One of my housemates works for a local pizzeria, another a local grocery store, and my landlord owns the most popular restaurant in town. All of this has really helped Felgueiras feel like a home and to feel like I am making the biggest possible impact in terms of cultural exchange between Portugal and the United States.»

 

The exchange of ideas and learning different customs, traditions, and ways of life can impact the students and the teacher with essential life lessons – like empathy and appreciation of diversity. When we see the world from different perspectives, we promote understanding and remove barriers that positively impact society.

 

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We interviewed Mike about his Fulbright experience, the American and Portuguese cultural differences, and how technology is impacting writers today.

 

1. How has your Fulbright ETA fellowship in Portugal influenced your writing?

A central tenet and challenge of Fulbright is cross-cultural exchange: how can you bridge the divide between yourself and your host country’s culture and language? And how can you open yourself up to the language, communication, and culture of your host nation? I definitely wrestled with and reveled in this challenge while an ETA in Felgueiras, and as a result I think I learned to be a more flexible and observant communicator overall. Americans often have a reputation internationally for “wearing our hearts on our sleeve” and “telling it like it is,” and I learned that, in Portugal, a lot of communication was more subtle than I was used to in the US.

In my current role as a speechwriter, I rely on many of these same foundational skillsets: how can we effectively bridge the divide between the speaker and the audience? How can we show an openness and understanding for the audience’s concerns or interests? It turns out that the fundamentals of compassionate, empathetic communication are the same building blocks, whether speaking at a small university in Portugal or at a large international conference

 

2. What challenges in society do you think that American people face that you think the Portuguese face as well?

There’s an old saying that, “an American thinks 100 years is a long time, a European thinks 100 miles (or kilometers) is a long distance.” I felt this difference acutely while a Fulbrighter in Portugal: while my friends and colleagues were amazed I lived six hours from my family (and considered it not too far!), I was equally amazed by the deep sense of history and culture that they shared with each other. By Portuguese standards, America is still quite a young country, and as a young nation there is a great deal left to be determined about what kind of people, culture, or society we want to have, a struggle that has only intensified greatly in recent years and one that shows few signs of resolution. As Americans, I think we often forget that, compared to many other nations, we are just starting out, and that national or cultural unity—like that of the Portuguese—is something that is hard earned.

 

3. How do think that all writers can impact American society and/or culture?

There’s a real sense that writing and communication is at a critical juncture, particularly with the advent of Large Language Models like ChatGPT or other AI algorithms: how do you write a compelling argument when the article might get buried by an unfavorable algorithm? How do you convince students that writing is an essential skill when ChatGPT can, seemingly, craft an essay for you in an instant? I, too, fret over the existential challenges facing written communication writ large, but I also take comfort in the fact that, even in our day-to-day lives, being able to write and communicate persuasively, with empathy and humanity, will always stand to benefit the writer and, ideally, the reader, too. To borrow lightly from JRR Tolkien, there may come a day when the purpose and value of human writing fails, but it is not this day, not yet.

 

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Mike has a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from Kenyon College and a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Prior to working at the Mayo Clinic, Mike was a Speechwriter for the Office of the President at John Hopkins University.

 

Mike also is a freelance writer and book critic with articles in The New York Times Book Review, The Economist, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, among others.

Find out more about Mike and see all of the other Fulbright Impact Articles here. Since the program’s founding, Fulbrighters have served as unofficial citizen ambassadors. Fulbright alumni continue to work to forge lasting connections, counter misunderstandings, inform the public, and help people and nations work together toward common goals. Our mission is to shape a more positive vision for our communities and our world, and Fulbrighters are critical in helping us carry it into the future—one connection at a time.

 

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