Page 17 - UD Magazine Vol. 31 No. 1

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY MARCAELA ALLEN | GREECE
FUN FACTS & DOMESTIC FARE
1. UD’s original study abroad trip, known as the “Delaware Foreign Study Plan,” cost each participant $1,000.
2. Pierre S. du Pont, famed entrepreneur and man partially responsible for the Empire State Building, funded UD’s first study abroad program. His wife, Alice, was a fierce advocate.
3. One participant on UD’s first study abroad trip, Herbert Lank, met his wife in Paris.
4. Another, a blind student named Frankie Cummings, received internationalrecognitionfor ranking 4th out of 71 (mostly French) students during his tenure abroad. Today, his distant descendant, Sarah Cummings, works in UD’s Office of Residence Life and Housing.
5. Misperceptions about the U.S. reported by UD’s early study abroad students include that all Americans like their meat raw and American husbands die at 45.
6. In 1929, reported the New York Herald, one of UD’s study abroad students joined American bankers and Parisian artists for “as odd a baseball team as was ever assembled in Europe.”
7. To ensure intensive language training, the earliest study abroad students were fined $4 for each English-speaking infraction.
8. During World War II, the Gestapo took over UD’s Parisian headquarters and destroyed most archival material.
9. In just two weeks in 1940, UD’s study abroad alumni raised nearly $500 (the equivalent of $10,000 today) to assist the Red Cross during World War II.
10. SomanyUDstudentssignedupforstudy abroad in 1972, Pan American Airlines painted “Delaware Clipper” on two of
its planes.
11. Ten days after receiving France’s highest civilian honor, the cross of the Ordre National De La Légion D’Honneur, a young Raymond Kirkbride died at age 36, presumably from sarcoma.
12. Organizing UD’s study abroad archive has been a 10-year (and counting) process.
Special thanks to the encyclopedic
Lisa Gensel, AS01M, archives coordinator, for all her time, help and expertise with this piece.
Volume 31
Number 1 2023 15