Dr. Karen Boroff, a distinguished professor of management and dean emerita at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business in New Jersey, exemplifies the power of academic exchange to showcase America’s leadership abroad. Boroff has received awards for her excellence in teaching and mentorship across management, human resources, labor relations, and negotiation, and for forging inter-institutional partnerships within the United States and overseas.
“The Fulbright experience has been one of the absolute highlights of my professional and personal journey,” she reflects. She was “was extraordinarily humbled to represent our great nation” at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar. Boroff’s Fulbright project was to teach courses in “change management”—a set of strategies and approaches to how organizations handle new developments—to institutional leaders abroad.
Boroff drew on her 35-year career at Seton Hall to teach these courses, including her own experience forging domestic and international partnerships between Seton Hall and other institutions. Boroff previously developed a partnership with Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) in Austria to bring Seton Hall students together for a short-term study abroad program with participants from Germany, Spain, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Thailand. The participants learned about organizational behavior, leadership, motivation, and job values.
Since 2010, Boroff has taken advantage of Seton Hall’s unique sabbatical program and spent sustained time at the United States Military Academy at West Point. She has a personal connection to West Point, since both of her children are alumni and currently serve in the U.S. Military, and her husband was a Captain in the U.S. Army.
Boroff’s sabbaticals at West Point have facilitated important opportunities for Seton Hall’s undergraduates and have also provided the cadets at West Point with further mentorship and learning opportunities. Seton Hall’s business and international relations students have been able to participate in the McDonald Conference for Leaders of Character alongside West Point undergraduates. This conference, led by world class senior fellows from across many sectors, gives students training to address pressing global issues in team-based, experiential, and analytical exercises.
At West Point, Boroff mentored cadets and faculty, authored case studies on leadership development, and contributed a chapter on conflict management to a textbook used across the academy. Her groundbreaking contributions earned her the USMA Distinguished Alumnus Faculty Award—the first civilian ever to receive the honor.
Her leadership, and her development of future leaders, continued on Fulbright. In Madrid, Boroff delivered a curriculum rooted in ethical leadership, strategic management, and transformative change. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s newly elected rector also asked Boroff to lead workshops on change management for the university’s leadership team where she presented practical strategies to help UPM leaders embrace institutional transformation. To make these meetings a success, Boroff emphasized listening and providing culturally attuned solutions. The results were rewarding. Boroff noted that “each session revealed a team eager to advance their work.” As a result of these workshops, she co-authored a bilingual research paper with UPM faculty on change management.
The Fulbright experience solidified the partnership between Seton Hall and UPM with a signed memorandum of understanding. This agreement ensures future academic exchanges and joint programs that will benefit students and faculty in both countries. The partnership has already benefited students from Seton Hall. Boroff led a one-week intensive spring break study abroad course in Spain at UPM. The program featured an active learning project she designed to cultivate career readiness and intercultural competence. “The course proved to be an excellent learning experience,” she said, “not only for the academic content but also for increasing the students’ self-assuredness, preparing them to be open to a cultural exchange.”
Boroff has also strengthened the connections between Seton Hall, UPM, and the United States Military Academy. She and her husband hosted a celebration in Madrid to commemorate West Point’s founding in 1802. She invited UPM’s Fulbright liaison to meet Colonel Russell Lemler, an instructor at West Point and the evening’s keynote speaker.
Boroff later arranged a visit to West Point for her Spanish colleagues to explore exchanges with West Point. She sees great potential in this relationship, “given that UPM is the premier engineering university in Spain and that West Point, known for its similar prowess in engineering, is also the premier institution on leader development.”
Reflecting on her Fulbright experience, Boroff credits her success to two guiding principles: the exhortation by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to “be attentive,” and a core philosophy she instills in her students, “Don’t network; nurture.”
Boroff shared that her Fulbright experience affirmed that “even in the face of different cultures, traditions, legal and economic environments, educational philosophies, and more, people thrive on being heard and want to be nurtured . . . and this was my greatest learning outcome.”
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program sends U.S. scholars and professionals to approximately 130 countries, where they lecture and conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields. Current faculty, administrators, and experienced professionals are encouraged to apply.