Maryland's Global Story

1871: Maryland (formerly Maryland Agricultural College) welcomes our first international student, Pastor A. Cooke of Panama.

1891: Pyon Su becomes Maryland's first international graduate, and the first Korean student to receive a degree from any U.S. college or university.

1915: Maryland enrolls our first Chinese student, Chun-Jun "Constant" Chen, from Shanghai. He returns from China in 1952 to become a research professor in agricultural economics and then a professor of Chinese until his retirement in 1967. All four of his sons attend Maryland, as do several of his grandchildren.

1943: Spanish poet and political refugee Juan Ramón Jiménez joins the Maryland faculty along with his wife and fellow writer Zenobia Camprubí. They teach Spanish, History, and European culture at Maryland until 1951. In 1956, Jiménez is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first of six Maryland faculty and researcher Nobel laureates. In 1981 Maryland names Juan Ramón Jiménez Hall in his honor.

1947: Maryland welcomes our first incoming Fulbright scholar, Felicitas Salvador Tacderas, from the Philippines. More than 500 UMD students, alums, staff and faculty have earned Fulbright awards since the program was launched in 1946.

1952: Maryland faculty John Cover and Alfred Aldridge receive the university’s first Fulbright grants to pursue their research and teaching interests in France and India.

1972: Maryland hosts one of the nine historic “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” table tennis matches at Cole Field House, improving relations between the U.S. and China during the Cold War.

1980: Maryland is the first American university to sign a formal agreement with a Chinese university.

2001: Maryland debuts the inaugural cohort of Gilman Scholars. Established to provide study abroad funding to U.S. undergraduates with financial need, our participation underscores our commitment to international education and providing opportunities for all students.

2008: Maryland’s strategic plan outlines an ambitious agenda to dramatically increase study abroad participation and forge closer ties to foreign embassies and international organizations in Washington, DC.

2013: Maryland joins the global university network Universitas 21 (U21), an international network of research-intensive universities.

2013: Maryland launches the Global DC Fellows program, empowering student diplomats to contribute to the work of government and non-governmental institutions on issues of peace, security, health, poverty and refugees.

2014: Maryland launches the Global Classrooms Initiative, bringing more than 2,000 students into project-based learning environments alongside students from international partner universities to take on the world’s grand challenges.

2019: We dedicate 2019 as The Year of Immigration at Maryland, celebrating our international diversity and spotlighting the impacts of forced migration and experiences of refugees. This campus-wide effort culminates in receiving NAFSA’s annual Paul E. Simon Comprehensive Spotlight Award.

2020: The four strategic pillars of Maryland’s strategic plan Fearlessly Forward center around improving the global common good through reimagining learning, taking on grand challenges, investing in people and communities, and developing partnerships.

2021: Maryland is distinguished as a "Top Producer" of Gilman and Fulbright Scholars over the past twenty years.

2021: Fearlessly Forward’s global education lens, the Common Agenda, is designed to graduate every student with the knowledge, skills and experience to collaboratively address the global inequities around grand challenges.

2022: We pilot Global Project-Based Learning modules in courses at the Schools of Engineering, Public Health, Information Sciences, Government and Politics and College Park Scholars, centered in taking on global grand challenges and involving the support of partners both domestic and international.