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UNM students can go global next week.
The University’s Global Education Offices, with the help of various other organizations, will launch this year’s International Education Week on Monday.
Danielle Gilliam, administrative officer for GEO, said this year’s international week will be a big one.
“This is going to be the most expansive International Education Week this University has ever seen,” she said. “We have events planned just about every day.”
Students will be able to participate in all of the events free of charge, Gilliam said.
Among the events planned are Lobo World Cup, a soccer tournament in which students get to rally behind different nationalities, an international photo contest and an Iron Chef-style international cook-off.
Gilliam said the cook-off will be the “headliner event” for the week. She said students will get to sample food made by different teams and could win a substantial door prize in the event.
“The door prize for this event is a $1,500 study-abroad scholarship,” she said. “So just by showing up, you can put your name in a hat and have the chance to win a pretty substantial scholarship.”
The cook-off aims to showcase the various food items from different cultures that will be prepared by domestic and international students, Gilliam said.
International Education Week will occur in the midst of GEO rebranding itself to focus on “education abroad” for UNM students.
Annette Mares-Duran, a study abroad adviser and coordinator for GEO, said the rebranding is part of the staff’s desire to attract UNM students to participate in its programs.
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“Our office has grown, and our office would like to start using Education Abroad as kind of our theme, mostly to raise awareness about the program and to bring color to it,” she said.
GEO Director Stephen Nussbaum said the rebranding also better defines what it means to go to school abroad.
“Part of the philosophy of moving from ‘study abroad’ to ‘education abroad’ is that students don’t simply go abroad to study,” he said. “They go abroad to learn.”
Nussbaum said he hopes to dispel some of the myths that are associated with international study, such as the misconceptions that students don’t need to work when they travel abroad or that they automatically need to learn the local language. He said GEO highly values the education abroad experience for students.
“We certainly believe that education abroad is the most transformative style of learning a student can do at UNM,” he said.
Nussbaum said any student who wants to
experience education abroad will be able to do it.
“It’s among the best investments they can make in their future,” he said. “In that sense, we should be sending twice as many students abroad as we are, and we need to get the word out.”
Gilliam said education abroad offers other benefits as well, because students who study abroad tend to have higher GPAs and graduation rates. She also said employers tend to prefer students who have had experience studying abroad.
Mares-Duran said GEO wants to let students know that it is possible for everyone to travel abroad although many believe that doing so is too expensive or will delay graduation.
And she said the organizers of International Education Week hope the events will help draw student attention to the office.
“We’re hoping to inspire them and to get their attention,” she said.
