Huddleston named associate provost for international programs

With the signs of war everywhere, Professor Mark Huddleston crossed the border into Bosnia for the first time. The year was 1996, and the images of what he faced then still haunt him.

Houses riddled with bullet holes. Roads littered with blown up vehicles. And civilians, crippled and on crutches or with missing limbs.

	Newly appointed Associate Provost for International Programs and Special Sessions, Mark W. Huddleston, met with faculty and staff at ELI in September.

"There's not a day when I don't think about Bosnia," Huddlestonsaid, sitting in his new second floor office at 4 Kent Way.

"It changed my life."

The former chairman of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware returned to Bosnia five more times as a consultant on fiscal management and local government.

"I felt I was participating in something of real importance," he said, "that I was making a difference."

Making a difference is what Huddleston hopes to do as the recently appointed associate provost for International Programs and Special Sessions (IPSS), the office which oversees the English Language Institute.

"I really believe in international programs and international studies," he said, "and I'd like to help the university develop in this arena."

In addition to Bosnia, Huddleston has traveled extensively, conducting research and consulting in Mexico, Kazhakstan and Southern Africa, as well as many European countries, and directing a number of university programs.

In fact, it was the existence of UD's study abroad programs which drew Huddleston to the university in 1980. By 1982 he was in London and Brussels as director of the first UD winter session there. He later directed the study abroad program in Geneva and co?founded the winter session in Mexico. During Huddleston's 20 years at the university, he has directed study abroad programs 13 times.

And it is these offerings which Huddleston said he hopes first to strengthen in his new position at IPSS. Currently, he said, only about 18% of undergraduate students study abroad.

"I'd like to see that increase dramatically."

The only way to do this, Huddleston said, is to provide students with more opportunities to participate by encouraging faculty to mount interesting programs.

"My goal is to make it easier for faculty to do so," he said.

Huddleston also foresees growth for ELI -- in expanding its share of what he calls the "almost inexhaustible" market of students who want to learn English. "I'm proud of what ELI does," he said. "It's an organization with a lot of talented people, one of the centers of excellence in IPSS.

"I'm very enthusiastic about its potential for the future."

Return to Newsletter 2000 contents