VCU Study Abroad Blog

DiversityAbroad.com is proud to announce 3 new scholarships aimed at increasing participation among minority students in education abroad. Here is a brief description of the funding opportunities:

DiversityAbroad.com Summer Scholarship (sponsored by AIFS)

DiversityAbroad.com, in cooperation with AIFS, will award five, $2,000 scholarships for students studying abroad during the summer 2008. Recipients must be a traditionally under-represented minority student and studying abroad on a DiversityAbroad.com Member program (see list of DiversityAbroad.com member organizations here:http://www.diversityabroad.com/dai_members.php)

DiversityAbroad.com Blog Abroad Grant

Diversity Abroad has long realized that students have the ability to encourage and inspire other students to go abroad. To help foster peer-to-peer communication and encouragement, DiversityAbroad is offering a grant for traditionally under-represented minority students to share their experiences abroad with the DiversityAbroad.com community.

Study Abroad in Turkey African-American Scholarship

The Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) in cooperation with DiversityAbroad.com are awarding up to 50 grants per year in the amount of $2,000 for full-time African-American undergraduates who have been accepted to a study abroad program in Turkey for a semester or a year.

Please visit http://www.diversityabroad.com/scholarships for more details and applications. Thank you.

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Jackie Longo, our peer advisor, studied abroad for a semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina through the International Student Exchange Program. She is available to speak with students who are interested in studying abroad and who need basic information on how to get started with the process. She is available 8:00pm-10:00pm, Monday through Friday; and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00am-3:00pm. Jackie can be contacted via email at longoja@vcu.edu or by telephone at (540) 379-6936.

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Rotary International, the world’s first service club organization, has over one million members at local rotary clubs all over the world. To promote service and intercultural understanding, Rotary International has provided over 37,000 scholarships for students studying abroad since 1947. Students are eligible for one of the 900 scholarships that Rotary International provides each year, covering up to $26,000 of student expenses. These scholarships are available to graduate and undergraduate students interested in studying Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, and Swedish. Awards will cover three to six months of intensive language studies, year-long studies abroad, or two-year degree programs abroad.

For more information, check out the Rotary International website (http://www.rotary.org/en/StudentsAndYouth/EducationalPrograms/AmbassadorialScholarships/Pages/ridefault.aspx) or contact Education Abroad!

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The results are in and the winners have been selected for the 2007 Education Abroad Photo Contest.
Check out the results on the VCU Education Abroad website at http://www.vcu.edu/oie/eao/summer_study_abroad/contest.html .

We would like to thank everyone who submitted their pictures and would also like to thank all who voted in the contest. There were over 150 photos submitted and over 200 voters for this year's contest. We are already looking forward to the 2008 Education Abroad Photo Contest!

Here are the winners:

Grand Prize, Laura Sullivan:

Monks in Laos gave us advice on which temples to visit.

Academic Category, Jennifer Phillips:

These Guatemalan girls are coming from or going to school. Two are dressed in Catholic school attire and the other dressed in traditional Mayan clothing. In Antigua, the Mayan culture is not often celebrated. It’s common that Mayan children have to abandon their Mayan culture when they begin school.

People Category, Teddy Taylor:

This photo was taken while waiting in line to enter the Vatican’s museum. The woman in the front is selling scarves while the man plays the accordion for the line.

Places Category, Betsy Schnibbe

After reaching Machu Picchu, my sister Jenna and I climbed to what they call the cemetery at Machu Picchu and took this.

Open Category, Zachary Helminiak

The miscellaneous photo is in Budapest, Hungary. The photo is of the reflection of the Fisherman’s Bastion in a building across the street. You can see me taking the picture on the right in the fourth panel from the bottom. I thought this was interesting look at something very old in the reflection of a modern building.

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Students interested in broadening and deepening their understanding of foreign policy issues are invited to sign-up to participate in a foreign policy discussion group during the spring semester. These groups will meet for eight weeks and use the 2007 Great Decisions discussion materials (www.greatdecisions.org). These discussion groups are designed to help VCU students become more aware of foreign policy matters, which should enhance their competitiveness for international or academic jobs, the best graduate programs, internships and nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships. No academic credit will be offered, but any student who is considering applying for a nationally competitive fellowship (i.e. the Fulbright Student Scholarship) should consider participation in one of these discussion groups. Discussion group facilitators will be upper-class Honors students who have been through the materials this fall. There will be opportunities for other VCU students to facilitate similar groups in future semesters. Three groups will be offered in the spring, and each group will be limited to fifteen undergraduate students and five graduate students. The groups will meet at The Honors College (701 W. Grace Street) on the following days/times beginning the week of January 21:

Wednesdays 2-3:30pm in the multipurpose room (1303)
Thursdays 11am-12:30pm in the seminar room (1302)
Thursdays 4-5:30pm in the seminar room (1302)

You can reserve a slot in one of these groups by e-mailing Amy Baumgartner, Assistant to the National Scholarship Coordinator (baumgartneac@vcu.edu). If you have questions about these discussion groups, please contact Amy Baumgartner or Jeff Wing, National Scholarship Coordinator (jawing@vcu.edu).

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