Elon students travel the globe for Winter Term

More than 900 students are traveling overseas or across the United States this January with some classes updating family and friends on blogs hosted by the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center and other classes creating social media accounts on Twitter.

Winter Term 2014 features four new Study Abroad offerings and a new Study USA program that takes students to Arizona and Mexico for a course on the immigration debate.

“Winter Term is a great opportunity for students with full schedules,” said Woody Pelton, dean global studies in the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center. “With some academic programs, students don’t have time in their four-year plan to be abroad for a full semester. A number of those students will travel over Winter Term as they’re primary option and will travel during winter more than once.”

Four programs in Brazil, France, Guatemala and Ghana were introduced this year. Those courses join several longstanding offerings, including the “Language, Culture & Ecotourism” class in Costa Rica, now in its 26th year and the longest-running program among the 27 Study Abroad classes.

Complementing the Study Abroad selections are four Study USA programs in New York and Washington, D.C.; Arizona; Hawaii; and Park City, Utah. Fellows programs are also traveling domestically and abroad, as are graduate students in the iMedia and MBA programs, whose destinations include Cuba, Costa Rica and Hong Kong.

Weather offered challenges to Study Abroad staff this month as a winter storm and unusually cold temperatures delayed or canceled thousands of flights around the United States as classes prepared to depart.

Some students and faculty were rerouted or arrived a day late because of travel delays. Global Education Center staff members, however, praised both students and parents for their understanding and patience. Plus, they said, the delays may have added a memorable element to their program.

“It’s something special for the groups, too. It bonds people,” said Emma Burress, assistant director of Study Abroad. “We had a group going to Vietnam that was supposed to fly in on the same flight yesterday. We ended up having them come from three directions, and they all met in South Korea to make the final flight together.”

For more information on Study Abroad and Study USA opportunities at Elon University, visit the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center website.