Brief: Students encouraged to study abroad

As part of Chancellor Michael Aiken's emphasis on a heightened
international focus for the campus, International Programs and Studies
has begun to implement efforts to increase awareness of their resources.

The staff of the Study Abroad Office is stepping up its visibility and is
working with departments and faculty members, providing materials and
posters, announcing group meetings and visiting classes.

"There is no question that the life-changing experience of a semester or
year abroad and the development of an essential international perspective
and sense of history and geography so lacking in our undergraduates are
among the very tangible benefits of a sojourn overseas," said  Roger E.
Kanet, director of International Programs and Studies. "It has become
clear to me that many students on this campus do not know about these
opportunities."

Kanet said about 650 students studied abroad in 1993-94 through the
auspices of the campuswide Study Abroad Office, and approximately 150
more through group programs in the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences
and Fine and Applied Arts. The objective is to double that in the next
five years.

As part of the Chancellor's Academic Plan for the Year 2000, a target
has been established to send 1,000 students abroad by August 1995, and
1,500 by the year 2000, Kanet said.

Meanwhile, at the request of many departmental advisers, a database of
courses taken abroad between Fall '91 and Fall '93 and their equivalencies
toward LAS graduation requirements as evaluated by both departments and
the college has just been completed, Kanet said. This will be an ongoing
project that should be most helpful to departmental advisers working with
pre-departure course approvals. The discs with this database were recently
sent to departments.