According to the survey of top research institutions, more than one in every four students at UD participates in study abroad. The five top ranked schools were the University of Notre Dame (39.2 percent) and Yeshiva (38.8 percent), Cornell (28.2 percent), Duke (26.5 percent) and Georgetown (26.5 percent) universities.

UD is known as the institution where study abroad originated during a 1920 conversation between President Walter Hullihen and Raymond W. Kirkbride, a young assistant professor of French. That conversation resulted in a trip to Paris, financed by UD benefactor Pierre S. du Pont, taken by eight young men in 1923. 

Study abroad has continued to flourish at UD and today, with a new trip to Antarctica included in Winter Session 2003, UD students have study opportunities on all seven continents. More than 50 percent of the programs offered in 2002-03 are Winter Session programs, and numbers indicate that 70-75 percent of students who participate in Study Abroad do so during Winter Session.

Data for the national rankings are collected annually as part of the "Open Doors" survey conducted by the Institute for International Education (www.iie.org), "the world's most experienced global higher education and professional exchange agency." IIE also administers the well-known Fulbright program. 

UD Vice Provost Bobby Gempesaw said UD’s ranking is significant: “IIE is the only organization that attemps to gather data on a national level from accredited U.S. institutions of higher education. The return rate for this year's survey was 84 percent, so the data are fairly comprehensive. This is as complete a picture as we have at this time of U.S. students abroad.”

For the past half-decade or so UD has ranked among the top 25 research institutions in the sheer number of students it sends abroad, Gempesaw said. More recently IIE began ranking institutions by study abroad participation expressed as a percentage of degrees conferred, and UD has continued to place highly in this ranking. Last year UD tied for 12th, Gempesaw said.

When UD established Winterim, and then Winter Session in the 1970s, it provided an ideal opportunity for off-campus travel programs, Gempesaw explained. These continued to grow in variety and popularity throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he said.

“UD faculty deserve a lot of the credit for developing academically strong, innovative, well-run and exciting programs,” Gempesaw said. “UD's centralized system of administration for study abroad programs through the Center for International Studies contributes to the success by providing an infrastructure, staff support and standardized procedures that place high importance on program quality and student well-being. 

“Finally, we have an experienced team of resident directors (locals) administering our semester programs. They are fluent in local languages and know the sites extremely well, so they provide a whole set of skills and experiences that augment our on-campus team,” Gempesaw said.

The number of students participating in Study Abroad has grown considerably in recent years, in keeping with national trends, Gempesaw said, noting that the IIE web site reports a 55 percent increase in U.S. students abroad in the past five years. 

In 1992-93, UD sent fewer than 500 students abroad. This year (2002-03), close to 1,300 are expected to travel and study abroad.

Of course, the number of programs offered at UD has burgeoned as well. The growth can be attributed to the national trend and to UD's renewed commitment to international education over the past several years., Gempesaw explained. 

“For example,” he said, “we now offer more study abroad scholarships than ever before, thereby enabling more students to participate. The growth of programs has expanded to cover more departments than ever before, so that students in formerly unrepresented disciplines see courses in their majors offered abroad and are understandably enticed to apply. The increasing popularity of the web also has made it much easier for students to apply online to study abroad programs, so the initial hurdle is much smaller than it used to be.”

Early Winterim destinations included Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, London and Geneva, which has served as a program site every year but one since 1972. Study abroad began to flourish when the winter term expanded to five weeks in 1975. 

In January 1979, more than 100 students went abroad to six sites; by 1980 the number of students and sites had doubled. By then the University's programs had expanded to include spring semester programs in London and Vienna. Costa Rica was added in 1983, and fall programs in London and Madrid followed in 1988. 

Foreign language-based semester programs were added in 1990 and 1994, and summer and winter programs were further expanded in the mid- and late-1990s to include sites such as Tanzania, Japan, Australia and South Africa. 

During the 1989-90 academic year, the University sponsored 17 programs and sent 445 students abroad. This year, the number of programs exceeds 60. Since the early days of Winterim nearly 30 years ago, nearly 10,000 students have traveled abroad on University-sponsored programs. 

“London is most popular both in the number of programs offered (about 12 every year) and the number of students (well over 200),” Gempesaw said. “However, if one defines popularity in terms of program growth, Australia is certainly in the running (four winter programs in 20,03 compared to two in 2002), and Italy continues to gain in popularity, with more than 150 students destined to go there in winter and spring. We're also launching two new Italy programs in summer 2003,” Gempesaw said. 

New offerings include Antarctica, four new Australia programs and a new program in New Zealand sponsored by the communication department. A new program for engineers is being offered in Bremen, Germany, and a new program for majors in health and exercise science is under way in China. 

For more information on these and other study opportunities, see the study abroad web site at [www.udel.edu/studyabroad].

Article by Beth Thomas