News

Twelve graduating seniors have been named as the 2017 Syracuse University Scholars, the highest undergraduate honor that the University bestows, according to Syracuse University News. Ten of the scholars are alumni of SU Abroad programs.

• Farrell Brenner, a women’s and gender studies and citizenship and civic engagement major: Women and Gender in the Arab World (Summer 2015), Religion, Law, and Human Rights (Summer 2015), and Exploring Central Europe (Fall 2015)
• Rachel Brown-Weinstock, a sociology, citizenship and civic engagement and policy studies major, enrolled in South Africa: A Global Health Education Experience in both Summer 2015 and 2016
• Hasmik Djoulakian, a women’s and gender studies and citizenship and civic engagement major: Florence Center (Spring 2015)
• Emma Ettinger, a stage management major: Oxford University Arcadia (Special petition Spring 2016)
• Emily Fesnak, an information management technology major: London Center (Fall 2015)
• Anniya Gu, a biochemistry major: Florence Summer Session (Summer 2014)
• Evangeline Soileau, an architecture major: Florence Center (Spring 2015)
• Genevieve Starke, an aerospace engineering major: Florence Center (Spring 2015)
• Bryan Sweeney, a music composition major and fine arts major: Florence Summer Session (Summer 2016)
• Geoffrey Vaartstra, a mechanical engineering major: Santiago Center (Spring 2016)

The University Scholars will represent the entire graduating class at the May 14 Commencement ceremony. On Wednesday, May 10, the scholars will be honored at a reception at the Chancellor’s House hosted by Chancellor Kent Syverud and Dr. Ruth Chen, at which they will receive special medallions to be worn at Commencement. The scholars will also be honored at the One University awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 25, at Hendricks Chapel.

The Syracuse University Scholars Selection Committee, a University-wide faculty committee, selected the 2017 scholars using criteria that included coursework and academic achievement, independent research and creative work, a personal statement, and faculty letters of recommendation.

On March 31, 2017, Dr. Hana Cervinkova and Juliet Golden, director and professor, respectively, of the SU Abroad Exploring Central Europe program, were presented with an award from the Forum on Education Abroad. Cervinkova and Golden were selected as the recipients of the Forum’s fourth Award for Excellence in Education Abroad Curriculum Design for the course “Negotiating Identities Across Europe’s Borders.”

The course, the centerpiece of the theme-based Exploring Central Europe program, offers students enrolled in the program an opportunity to interact with different cultures and places on Europe’s frontiers. The course travels throughout Eastern and Central Europe, to Prague, Budapest, Berlin, Bratislava, Krakow, and Vienna. At the heart of the course is the drive for students to investigate sites tied to WWII, the Holocaust, and Soviet totalitarian rule. They explore the big questions of the 21st century—how people from different national and ethnic identities, with different languages, cultures, and traditions, are able to live together after wars and other kinds of violence and trauma.

“’Exploring Central Europe’ is a new model for SU Abroad,” says Margaret Himley, Associate Provost for International Education and Engagement. “A thematically based program, it offers students the opportunity to study the histories, politics, and activisms of an important part of the world in collaboration with each other, with Hana and Juliet, and with a host of activists and artists they encounter over the semester.”

The Fall 2017 cohort will be the fourth to enroll in the program, which runs exclusively in the fall semester. In addition to following the coursework designed by Cervinkova, students participate in internships in Wroclaw, Poland, their home for the semester, and write for the publicly-accessible Urban Labs website. There, students creatively reflect on their travels, interviews, site visits, observations, and exchanges, and share their experiences, photographs, and research with the world.

Cervinkova and Golden accepted their award at the Forum’s 13th annual conference in Seattle. Additionally, the pair presented a conference session on the course. It was determined that the curriculum they developed aligned with The Forum’s Standards of Good Practice for Education Abroad by:

·         Providing an academically rigorous program of study;
·         Enriching the classroom experience through the use of the location and/or its unique resources;
·         Establishing learning objectives tied to the mission statement of the home institution(s) and/or department(s);
·         Expanding and enhancing students’ home institution curricula;
·         Setting a precedent for exceptional approaches to fostering student learning.

“It is wonderful to see this course recognized because it represents the best of international education,” said Petra Hejnova, SU Abroad Director of Curriculum & Academic Services. “It tackles a topic of critical importance, it actively engages the study abroad location through original research, and it provides academically rigorous opportunities for students to reflect on what they are learning.”

Cervinkova and Golden receive nearly unanimous praise from students who have enrolled in the Central Europe program. “I am not the same person I was prior [to the program] and I would never wish to be,” said Megan Newell, who went abroad in Fall 2014, the first year the program was offered. “I have learned so much about people and culture, the land, humility, and the course of history from this program that I could never even dream of what my life would be without it.”

Dr. Louis Berends, the SU Abroad Director of Academic Programs, and Syracuse University College of Law professor Dr. Michael Schwartz were one of three winners of the Diversity Abroad Innovation Competition, held at the annual Diversity Abroad conference in Minneapolis on March 22.

Berends and Schwartz were among 10 finalists chosen to vie for the awards. The finalists presented their ideas and then were judged on the spot during the closing plenary session of the conference. Their presentation, “Diversifying the disability perspective: Exploring inclusive practices in Japan and the U.S.,” proposed the creation of an academic faculty-led program in Japan for students of color and students with disabilities, two core populations that are traditionally underrepresented in study abroad. The proposal envisioned the recruitment of a racially diverse group of students, some with disabilities and some without, for a credit-bearing trip.

The implementation of the program would involve a national drive to recruit students of color and students with disabilities. For instance, Gallaudet University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the California State University, Northridge, have racially diverse populations of students with disabilities, some who are deaf or hard of hearing. Accompanying the group to Japan would be a team of sign language interpreters experienced in international travel and customs. The goal of the program would be to compare the two nations’ approach to disability law, policy, and practice, and to meet Japanese people with disabilities.

According to Berends, the prize money will go toward Professor Schwartz’s travel to the three aforementioned schools to recruit students for the program. The program will be a part of the Syracuse Abroad short-term program offerings in the 2017-18 academic year.

On March 21, 2017, the Transportation Safety Authority (TSA) restricted airline passengers from bringing large electronic devices (laptops, tablets, e-readers, electronic games, portable printers, cameras, etc.) in carry-on luggage on flights originating from or traveling through the following airports:

Queen Alia International Airport (AMM) (Amman, Jordan)
Cairo International Airport (CAI) (Cairo, Egypt)
Ataturk International Airport (IST) (Istanbul, Turkey)
King Abdul-Aziz International Airport (JED) (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
King Khalid International Airport (RUH) (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
Kuwait International Airport (KWI) (Farwaniya, Kuwait)
Mohammed V Airport (CMN) (Casablanca, Morocco)
Hamad International Airport (DOH) (Doha, Qatar)
Dubai International Airport (DXB) (Dubai)
Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH) (Abu Dhabi)

All travelers coming to the United States from or through these airports should place large electronic devices in their checked luggage. Passengers can carry cellphones/smartphones on the plane.

The Department of Homeland Security has released a fact sheet on the new security measures.

The United Kingdom has adopted similar measures for flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

Applications are now open for all SU Abroad center programs for the Spring 2018 semester. Applications will remain open until October 1, 2017. Students are encouraged to apply early, as SU Abroad has rolling admissions. As soon as all aspects of an application have been received, SU Abroad admissions counselors will review and begin admitting students to the programs!

Students can begin their applications here.

New for summer and fall 2017, Syracuse University Abroad will offer a residence hall housing option for students participating in the SU Madrid program. Pending the Board of Trustee’s approval, SU Madrid will reserve a block of rooms with two occupants per room. You will be assigned to rooms based on information provided on the Housing Request form (among the post-acceptance forms in your application). If there is more demand than space, we will conduct a lottery to assign spots.

The residence hall, Colegio Mayor El Faro, is situated in the Moncloa neighborhood of downtown Madrid and is a 25-minute walk to the SU Madrid Center. The rooms are furnished, including a small kitchen with a sink, mini-fridge, and microwave. Bed linens and bath towels are provided and laundered weekly by the cleaning staff. Three meals a day in the El Faro cafeteria are included in this option.

“We are excited about this new residence opportunity, which provides game and exercise rooms as well as social and sports activities, and a chance to get to know Spanish and other European students,” said Margaret Himley, Associate Provost for International Education and Engagement.

Interested students are encouraged to submit their applications to SU Abroad for housing at Colegio Mayor El Faro as soon as possible due to the limited availability of space. Although unlikely, if this arrangement does not work out, SU Abroad will provide a homestay for all students in the program.

All students who are placed in the residence hall will need to pay a $300 deposit and sign a housing agreement form to confirm their placement in El Faro.

A group of seven SU Abroad students went to London in May 2016 as part of the first-ever WRT 301: Civic Writing in London course, taught by Jess Pauszek in the College of Arts & Sciences. During their time in the United Kingdom, the students explored the rich history of the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (the FWWCP), a non-profit organization established in 1976 to promote the belief that writing should be accessible to all people, especially to those in the working class.

Throughout the social turbulence of the 1980s in the UK, the FWWCP sought to promote the stories and voices of the working class, and the Federation continued its work until 2007. when it was reorganized and re-branded as the FED. The SU Abroad students on the course were able to speak to the FED’s members and to attend writing workshops that focused on the collected works of hundreds of working-class people.

This past December, the group published a book, Preserving Hidden Histories: Stories from Collaborative Writing Communities that contained a summary of their coursework and their own reflections on their time in London. Prose and poetry fill the pages, connecting students’ experiences growing up in working-class communities in the U.S. to the lessons they learned from workers throughout the UK.

The students and their professors look forward to publishing another volume of their reflections soon.

Anjelica Elsroth, a junior in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, has been awarded a GoEuro European Study Abroad Scholarship. She is the first SU Abroad student to win a scholarship from GoEuro.

GoEuro European Scholarships offers three individual awards for study in an EU and/or Schengen country. All students enrolled in a Syracuse University Center program in Europe are eligible to apply. The application deadline is in January for study abroad during the following academic year, and awards range from 500 to 2,000 Euros.

“We are delighted to help one of your students with their dreams of studying abroad and hope they are able to experience the best that Europe has to offer,” Katherine Shanahan, Senior Marketing Manager at GoEuro.

Elsroth joins the dozens of SU Abroad students who have been awarded external scholarships to study abroad. SU Abroad maintains a lengthy list of outside scholarships available to students interested in offsetting the costs of a semester abroad through scholarships and grants.

Communications Design professor William Padgett sends in this round-up of an intense field study weekend in Milan with the Florence Design students:

“In its inaugural semester, the Syracuse University Florence Design Program students visited the Milan design office of Continuum and the Jozeph Forakis Design studio. Armed with 48-hour transit passes, 16 students and three professors traversed Milan, visiting many design venues. At the Triennial Museum, SUF Design professor Federico Carandini delivered an insightful and inspiring guided tour of an Italian classic furniture design exhibit followed by professor Ingrid Lamminpää leading the students through a dazzling exhibition of Italian women designers.

Fall 2016 abroad students are returning home, back to campus, with time to reflect on their semesters away. Sarah, a sophomore engineering and computer science student, went to University College Dublin (UCD), and shared her experience with us:

“My semester abroad in Ireland has been an experience unlike any other. The students and faculty at UCD were very welcoming and supportive upon my arrival and throughout the semester. I enjoyed learning from knowledgeable professors and alongside talented students. I appreciated the hands-on approach that all of my modules employed. In construction materials, I built a Christmas decoration out of concrete, timber, and an electronic starter kit. In fluid mechanics, we worked with a pump and a turbine, and in physiology, we analyzed images of nerves and tissues. These activities allowed me to apply knowledge learned in lecture. I also took the module Discovering Ireland: Landscape through which I attended field trips to Meath, Westmeath, Carlow, and Kildare; we visited fascinating tombs, impressive monasteries, and intricate castles to learn about Irish history and culture.

The UCD campus is beautiful and features ponds and footpaths through the trees. There are countless clubs and societies, so I enthusiastically joined Snow Sports, Ultimate Frisbee, Engineering Society, International Student Society, and Erasmus Student Network. International Student Society and Erasmus Student Network (ESN) exposed me to a wide variety of adventurous international students. I joined ESN’s trips to Kerry and Northern Ireland and met students from twelve other countries.

All in all, I fell in love with UCD, Dublin, and all of Ireland. I have a new appreciation for Irish landscape, culture, and history, and I am so grateful for this unforgettable semester. I highly recommend a semester abroad in Ireland to anyone seeking adventure, friends from around the world, and newfound independence.”