HWS News
18 September 2024 President's Forum: Celebrating 50 Years of Global Education By Andrew Wickenden '09
As HWS celebrates 50 years of study abroad, the President’s Forum Series reflects on the growth and impact of international education with the HWS community.
In the spring of 1975, Professor Emerita of Art History Elena Ciletti and 29 students spent 10 weeks exploring the art of Venice, Florence and Rome. From that initial semester abroad, Hobart and William Smith has become a national model in global education programming.
HWS celebrates 50 years of international education during the 2024-25 academic year, kicking off with a President’s Forum Series event on Tuesday, Sept. 24. The panel, “Celebrating 50 Years of Study Abroad,” will begin at 7 p.m. in the Vandervort Room in Scandling Campus Center.
The conversation will include:
Tom D’Agostino, Dean for Global Education, who developed the HWS Center for Global Education in 2001 and has led study abroad and international education since he came to HWS in 2000;
Jane Erickson ’07, Director of Learning & Impact at the Rippel Foundation, who studied abroad in Ireland and earned a Fulbright award to Indonesia after graduation;
Oliver Meeker ’09, an enterprise sales leader at the data, IT and security firm Cribl, who studied abroad in Vietnam and returned as a Fulbright recipient after graduation;
Alberto García de la Puente Stanley ’25, who is studying architectural studies and studio art and has studied abroad in Rome and Seoul, completing photo projects in both locations through the Student International Initiatives Fund;
Kisean Jones ’25, a double major in Latin American history and Spanish and Hispanic studies who studied abroad in Brazil and Seville, Spain; and
Annabel Ramsay ’25, a double major in economics and Asian studies who studied abroad in Taiwan.
For two consecutive years, in 2017 and 2018, the Princeton Review ranked HWS as having the top study abroad program in the entire country. In 2010, HWS won the Simon Award for Campus Internationalization by the National Association of Foreign Student Affairs. HWS has been recognized as a “Top Producer” for both the U.S. Department of State’s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship program and the U.S. Fulbright Program. Between 2005 and 2020, 45 HWS students were awarded Fulbright Scholarships — all of them having participated in a study abroad program. More than 90 HWS students have won the national Gilman scholarship over the past 20 years.
Learn more about the Center for Global Education and HWS’ legacy of outstanding study abroad experiences.
Established in 2000 by President Mark D. Gearan, the President's Forum Series brings a variety of speakers to campus to share their knowledge and ideas with students, faculty and staff, as well as with interested community members.
