UNL is offering up to 150 scholarships, worth $1,500 each, to students wishing to participate in a faculty-led study abroad experience or a language study program between December 2010 and August 2011. The scholarships are part of the Global Gateway program designed to promote and enhance global competency in undergraduate students and funded by the University of Nebraska Foundation through the Office of Academic Affairs.
Scholarship applications, due Dec. 1, are available online at http://www.unl.edu/iaffairs, and at International Affairs, 420 University Terrace. Priority for Global Gateway scholarship will be given to students who have never traveled outside the United States. Students must participate in experiences led by a UNL faculty member and for UNL credit - or in language study programs abroad.
This is the second year of the Global Gateway initiative funded by the NU Foundation.
In the first year, several Global Gateway faculty leaders and associates participated in the program, which featured a pre-reading project and other activities to help faculty associates who had never organized or led study-abroad programs develop the skills and knowledge to lead trips.
The 2010 leaders were Michael Hoff, Ron Hampton, Terry Sebora, Michael James and Yiqi Yang. The 2010 faculty associates were: Richard Bischoff, Wendy Weiss, Amy Struthers, Robert Joeckel, Kristin Lucas, Jennifer Brand and Georgia Jones. Additionally, a number of student scholarships were awarded.
David Wilson, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said he hopes the scholarships encourage students to take advantage of study-abroad opportunities.
"Our students are inheriting an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world," Wilson said. "They will need a kind of global competency - the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and abilities to interact productively and respectfully with peoples from various languages and cultures; the ability to comprehend global events and issues and create possibilities for addressing them. One way of developing that global competency is by living and studying abroad. We hope these Global Gateway scholarships will encourage and enable more of our students to do that."
For more information, contact Wilson at dwilson2@unl.edu.