Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 2, Page 27 Winter 1992 Around the world for 70 years When a friend recently asked me whether studying abroad is worth it, I told him that there is no greater opportunity for the college student...that it was the greatest adventure, not to speak of the greatest learning experience, of my life." Those are the words of Scott Curtice, Delaware '92, who participated in the University's Semester-in-Vienna Program in 1990. Curtice and hundreds of others have had their lives enriched by participating in one of the many semester-abroad programs offered through the Office of International Programs and Special Sessions. It is a tradition steeped in Delaware history as the University was the first in the U.S. to initiate study-abroad programs. The idea originated with Raymond Watson Kirkbride, a young University instructor, who persuaded former President Walter Hullihen to initiate the program in the early l920s. In 1922, Kirkbride, with $500 from the Service Citizens of Wilmington, sailed to France to investigate courses in French universities that would fit in with the curricula of American colleges. The junior-year-abroad program began the following year when Kirkbride returned to France with eight University juniors. By living with families in a provincial city in France for a few months, the students became immersed in the language and customs of the host country and then moved on to a university. Although Kirkbride met an early death at the age of 37, the program he founded continued without interruption at the University through l947. Opportunities to study abroad were resumed in 1971 when then President E.A. Trabant established a Winterim session during January. Semester-abroad programs resumed in 1975. Today, more than 15 concentrated programs are offered during the five-week Winter Session, which runs this year from Jan. 6 to Feb. 7, and there are entire semester programs offered each fall and spring in a variety of countries. Tonya Carey, Delaware '93, who spent the spring of l990 in London, recalls her experience as a time of "endless possibilities." "I never want to leave," she wrote at the time. What makes the semester-abroad program so exciting? A change of atmosphere, the camaraderie of friends and fellow students and challenging classes that make learning fun. The trips offer "exceptional, unique and valuable learning experience," according to William McNabb, acting director of overseas studies. Students who are "open to new ideas, curious and adventuresome" find the programs especially appealing, he said. "This experience is one of Delaware's unique and special features. It is integrated into the undergraduate academic curriculum, available to students at a special time in their lives," he added. The wide variety of semester-abroad programs caters to students with all sorts of interests. Fees are kept to a minimum, and any student in good academic standing qualifies to participate. Usually, students need not be a major in the sponsoring department to apply. Fall semester programs included study in Spain, Grenada, France and Germany. This spring, students have a choice of going to Costa Rica, Vienna, Paris, London and Scotland. There is hardly a corner of the globe left untouched by the Winter Session l992 study-abroad program. Sixteen overseas programs were planned by departments throughout the University. These programs give students a chance to study nursing in England, language arts and instructional strategies in London and Edinburgh, Russian conversation, culture, grammar and literature in Leningrad and business and political science in Switzerland. Still other programs offer Spanish courses in Mexico, political science and sociology courses in Israel, economics classes in London and economics, history and conversational Chinese classes in the People's Republic of China. Students can study accounting, business administration and finance in one London program, or study new and classical British drama in the London theatre district in another. The departments of art history and foreign languages and literatures offer courses in Rome and Athens, and there are more courses in foreign languages and literatures in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Costa Rica. The Winter Session tuition rate for a single credit is the same as the regular academic year rate. The fixed ceiling rate on Winter Session tuition, however, substantially reduces costs for students enrolling in more than four credit hours. For longer semester programs, cost is full-time University tuition and a program fee that covers airfare, housing for the duration of the program, meals (in some cases) and selected group excursions. Brochures on specific programs and more information are available from the Office of International Programs and Special Sessions, 325 Hullihen Hall, telephone (302) 831-2852. -Beth Thomas