News

How many faculty do you know who’ve been on not one, not two, but three Fulbrights? For French professor Valerie K. Orlando, the world is her classroom. From the souks of Marrakech to the traboules of Lyon, her time spent in Morocco, Tunisia, and France have been foundational to her work in the humanities—and she’s not done yet. As a humanities scholar with a focus on Africa and the Caribbean, her international experiences are foundational to her explorations of literature, film, and women’s studies in these regions.

Dr. Kenneth Leonard shares how his Fulbright experience in Ghana was essential to bringing on a new lens to his AGNR course, AREC 365: World Hunger Population and Food Supplies.

Meet Alyssa Taylor '24—she spent the 2022-23 school year in Korea as a Gilman scholar at Seoul National University. Now, she's connecting students to their own study abroad journeys as a Global Learning Ambassador for Education Abroad.

26 University of Maryland students were recently awarded the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State, a record number since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted study abroad in 2020.

A lifetime of dancing around the world defines the work of Maryland faculty fellow Kate Spanos (Ph.D. ’16), non-profit founder and now first-time author. She specializes in dances of resistance, which allow communities to have their voices heard in a way that transcends speech. Through her travels to Montserrat in the Caribbean, Ireland, and Brazil—she’s seen the power of these dances to resist subjugation and build community firsthand, and she’s sharing this knowledge on campus and off.

It’s graduation day. When Paulina Leder ‘23 walks across the stage, four years of late nights studying history, conversations in German, and term papers in French come to a close in a singular handshake from the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) and the flash of a graduation photographer’s camera. Leder has joined the ranks of other fearless alumni of one of the top 50 global universities in the world. Her first order of business? One more international exchange with her alma mater.