For the first time ever, Elon University is sending students in two programs to Cuba as part of their business and graduate studies.
*****
Hundreds of students will travel the world this month as part of Winter Term 2013 programs in nations such as New Zealand, India, Ghana and Greece.
As of Jan. 2, the university’s Isabella Cannon Global Education Center counted 678 undergraduates taking part in 28 formal Study Abroad programs, with another 70 students enrolled in six Study USA programs around the United States, including groups in Hawaii, Arizona and Kentucky. Students involved in the university’s Fellows programs are taking part in their own domestic programs; the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars in the nation’s capital is one such location.
The Interactive Media graduate program also has master’s candidates traveling the globe to produce a multimedia project for nonprofit partners in Costa Rica, Portugal – and Cuba.
For the first time ever, Elon University will have a formal presence in the island nation just 90 miles south of Florida. iMedia students will report and produce material for an organic farm on the outskirts of Havana. The graduate students, led by School of Communications senior lecturer Randy Piland, will be joined by two Elon seniors reporting a project on sustainable farming for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Undergraduates enrolled in “Business in the Caribbean,” a program led by professors Kevin O’Mara and Art Cassill in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, will also visit Cuba as well as the Cayman Islands.
All programs will have departed for their respective destinations by Jan. 4; students, faculty and staff are expected back to the United States by Jan. 28, with many classes arriving a few days earlier.
“The traveling is exciting to students,” Morrison said, “but what’s really exciting for our office is the learning that happens with these experiences.”
Parents, classmates and friends can keep up-to-date with program news by following the Winter Term 2013 blog managed by Study Abroad staff: http://blogs.elon.edu/elonstudyabroad/