I’m trying to avoid using the J word, but my “journey” to Newark began eight miles east, in 1992. I was an intern with the Jersey City public housing authority, a seminal experience. It shaped my thinking about housing and cemented my fascination with the US.

I have visited Newark occasionally, but I don’t know it. A bit like the Bronx, its reputation, if it has one, precedes it, perhaps associated with two things: the upheavals of 1967 and an international airport.

With the great fortune of a second Fulbright Scholarship, I’m going to be an intern, of sorts, again. This time, I’ll be attached to Rutgers University. That’s a name that has one immediate resonance for me because it’s the alma mater of Paul Robeson. Beyond that, I know very little about where I’m going or what I’ll be doing there. However, from the discussions I’ve had with my soon-to-be colleagues, it’s an exciting prospect.

I’ll be helping to lead and teach a course called “Local Citizenship in a Global World”. The blurb says scholars (not students) will engage with “community building, deep reflection, consciousness-raising, knowledge- and skill-building activities focused on what it means to be a ‘positive change agent’ in our diverse, dynamic, and deeply troubled society…In particular, we will orient ourselves to notions of justice, critical thinking and creativity “.

I’ll find out to what extent this is PR puff. But on the face of it, these objectives are the polar opposite of what I’ve experienced during my two years or so working in UK higher education. That’s a longer subject, but suffice to say, I’ve become very disillusioned, very quickly. I’m hoping my time at Rutgers will, at least, be an antidote to the corporate sausage factory approach to university education that I’ve found.

But if I’m going into a known unknown, how much more is that true for the US? A lot has already been said about the Presidential election – and the race hasn’t really started yet. Of course, the political parameters are still firmly drawn by the two-party system, but whatever the result, this seems likely to be a pivotal year for the nation. As I’ve got older (I’ll be 60 while I’m in Newark), I’ve come to think that predictions of triumph or disaster are usually wrong. However, as I’ve observed many times in my many visits to the US, it is a sick country. This year could determine whether it starts to get better or becomes a lot worse.

It’s going to be fascinating to witness how the next few months play out, from the vantage point of Newark, NJ. Please join me.