Economics and management department chair earns second Fulbright Award

August 2, 2024

It’s been a busy, accomplishment-filled year for Vicki Baker, Albion’s E. Maynard Aris Endowed Professor in Economics and Management and chair of the Economics and Management Department.

In April, her ninth book was published and she completed an ACE Fellowship at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Then, May brought the announcement from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board that Baker had received a prestigious Fulbright Specialist Program award (her second) to complete a project at Franklin University Switzerland.

Fulbright recipients are selected based on academic and professional achievement, demonstrated leadership in their field, and their potential to foster long-term cooperation between institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Fulbright alumni include 60 Nobel Prize winners; 88 Pulitzer Prize winners; and 39 heads of state or government.

“Being able to secure this second grant allows me to continue developing my skills in the areas of faculty and leadership development, strategic partnerships, and supporting faculty in liberal arts college environments, particularly for those in professional fields,” Baker said. “And I get to expand my network and enhance my skills in a global context. Fulbright is a competitive program and I am proud to represent myself and Albion College in this esteemed program and globally in liberal arts college contexts.”

Baker called her fellowship year at Hope College transformative. Her focus there was collaborating with The Office of the Provost to develop a department chair and program director succession management and mentoring program. 

“This project work required my engagement with so many units and departments across campus to develop the necessary content, and I loved every moment of those interactions and program development,” Baker said. “The program pilot will launch this fall and I was asked by Hope to stay connected to help support those efforts which I am thrilled to do.” 

Her most recent book, A Toolkit for Mid-Career Academics: Cultivating Career Advancement (Routledge/Taylor & Francis), offers action-oriented tools to engage (or re-engage) mid-career programming at the individual faculty, institutional, consortial, and grant-funded levels. The book offers solutions to two driving questions faced by mid-career faculty: “What’s next?” and “How to navigate?” Baker edited the book along with Aimee LaPointe Terosky and Laura Gail Lunsford.

“Readers will find resources for immediate implementation and, importantly, mid-career faculty will find ways to ignite their passion in building their career pathway forward,” Pamela Eddy, associate provost for faculty affairs and development and professor of higher education at William & Mary, wrote in reviewing the book.

Baker said one of her priorities as a management professor is disseminating good scholarship and practice.

“This book is just one more way for me to do that,” she said.