assistant-news@dailylobo.com
@ChloeHenson5
UNM might soon add yet another location to its international exchange opportunities soon.
Eszterházy Károly College (EKC), located in Eger, Hungary, and UNM agreed to collaborate to allow students from each university to go exchange at the other, according to a UNM press release.
Daniel Ortega, director of international law programs at UNM, said the program is still in the planning phase right now.
“I can’t really specify a date,” he said. “I just think it should be relatively soon.”
Ortega said the program would allow students from UNM to go to EKC and vice versa, with the students paying the cost of tuition to their respective schools.
According to the press release, the two institutions are also considering possible exchanges for staff and faculty from the two universities. Details for those exchanges will be negotiated when the situation arises, according to the release.
In an email statement, Gabriel Melendez, a professor of American Studies who helped start the collaboration, said his department is still working to finalize the exchange program.
“I am continuing to work with my faculty counterparts at Eszterházy Károly College in Eger to determine the feasibility of building student exchange initiatives between EKC and UNM,” he said.
Danielle Gilliam, an administrative officer for the Global Education Office, said members of the American Studies department initiated the project. She said her office will figure out most of the details of the agreement.
“They’re the ones who are actually in the lead here,” she said. “We just support the other schools and colleges on campus when they want to start a program like this.”
Gilliam said the GEO offers many study abroad opportunities that it promotes to UNM students.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
“We have an education abroad office so we can recruit students to participate in the programs,” she said. “We just sort of promote all of our programs very broadly. We have 160 agreements out there, so there are 160 opportunities that students could be taking advantage of.”
Gilliam said it is still unknown how many students will be able to participate in UNM’s exchange agreement with EKC.
Though each agreement is unique in its own way, Gilliam said this exchange will have similarities with other exchange programs at UNM.
“Each one has their own special characteristics,” she said. “But in essence, they’ll want to send a certain number of students here, and we would want to try to send a certain number of students to their institution.”
