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Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana, Pro Mundo. The addition of those last two words to Baylor’s longstanding motto mirrors the university’s mission statement (“for worldwide leadership and service”), and highlights Baylor’s global impact as a Christian research university.

Baylor faculty have long conducted groundbreaking research with a worldwide bent, and that continues today. For a few examples, let’s take a trip across campus and around the globe:

The beginning of this summer has been an amazing chance for the First Gent and me to see the unmistakable Baylor spirit in action – this time across Europe. We are taking time to rejuvenate, but the best part of our trip has been seeing Baylor Study Abroad programs up close and personal.

Once again this summer, Baylor students can be found around the globe, ministering and serving in 10 countries across four continents on Baylor Missions trips.

What makes Baylor’s mission trips distinct is the blending of service and calling. These trips are discipline-specific: students with similar career goals or interests come together for trips that allow them to further develop in areas like healthcare, business or music as they meet significant needs wherever they travel.

Sungseek Moon, Ph.D., The Carl and Martha Lindner Endowed Chair for Global Studies and professor at Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, has been selected as a 2024-2025 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Kenya, joining an elite group of scholars who have received the prestigious and competitive fellowship from the U.S. government’s premier international educational exchange program.

Baylor University has been selected by the Institute of International Education (IIE) to receive an IIE American Passport Project grant that will enable up to 25 Baylor students to obtain their first U.S. passport and open the pathway to study abroad.

With almost 25 years of experience in international education, Debra Wainscott has found her calling as an international student academic support specialist.

Wainscott taught English in China for several years before coming to Baylor, where she began working as a lecturer for the Global Gateway Program in January 2019.

Wainscott said she started to notice that students who finished the Global Gateway Program still needed academic support after they were fully enrolled at Baylor. As a result, the International Student Academic Support Office was created in partnership with the Center for Academic Success and Engagement, with Wainscott as the main point of contact.

Currently entering its fifth year, the Certificate in Global Engagement is giving over 400 students an official outlet to explore multicultural opportunities and become globally focused.

Raphael Abayateye, assistant director for global engagement, described the program as a way to develop “global leaders” and “cultural humility and competence.”

“[The certificate gives] opportunities that would help students interact with other cultures and other people who just have a different way of doing things and perspectives different from them,” Abayateye said.

The certificate has three requirements: intercultural events, global courses and practical involvement, and international experience.

Baylor is home to students from all around the world, and the Global Gateway Program is designed to support those for whom English is a second language.

Dr. Cornell Menking, director of the Global Gateway Program, has been with the program since its inception over five years ago. He said it was started in partnership with Study Group to “create a pipeline for international students.”

 On the heels of recognition as a Fulbright Top Producing Institution, Baylor University’s soaring success for major fellowships and awards continues as a record 16 Baylor University students and recent alumni have been selected for Fulbright U.S. Student Grants. The grants from the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program allow Fulbright recipients to pursue graduate study, conduct research or teach English abroad.

In addition to the 16 Fulbright recipients, four Baylor students have been selected as alternates. In total, Baylor had a record 34 students named finalists this year for the Fulbright.

Studying abroad is often considered a great part of the college experience, but for first-generation students, it can feel inaccessible and unattainable. The First Abroad Fellows program works to combat this by providing resources and mentorship to first-generation students to help them get out of Waco and into the world.

The program was first established by Global Baylor in 2018. Per its website, it was launched to help first-generation students “become more globally engaged” during their time at Baylor.

Center for Global Engagement ambassadors provide resources and mentorship for international students all year round. Ambassadors help put on initiatives and events for international students and are focused on welcoming them and connecting them to the Baylor community.

From the Galapagos Islands to New Zealand, Baylor’s study abroad programs offer various destinations for students — with a price tag. However, the Center for Global Engagement offers financial resources and support for students who are doing summer, semester and winter study abroad trips.

Holly Joyner, associate director of global engagement and marketing, said the study abroad office puts emphasis on helping students get ready for study abroad as soon as possible, including preparing to cover the costs.

Here at Baylor, we’re committed to hosting students from around the globe and providing them with a world-class education. We’re grateful for the contributions and perspectives that international students bring to our campus as they further their education and aspirations. Whether you’re thinking of becoming an International Bear or are part of the family already, numerous financial aid opportunities are available to help finance your Baylor education. 

As one of the many resources the Center for Global Engagement provides for those interested in studying abroad, the Study Abroad Student Leader program is a more personal tool for connecting students together.

The program was created two years ago by Kodi Henderson, the assistant director of study abroad, to provide prospective study abroad students with peers who could offer advice throughout the process.

Baylor University international trade researcher Lourenco Paz, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, has received the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to Hungary, a prestigious and competitive fellowship of the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards provides a distinctive opportunity for scholars to teach, conduct research and carry out professional projects at a multitude of universities around the world. As the U.S. government’s premier international educational exchange program, the program serves a key role in international diplomacy as scholars build relationships with a nation and their universities. 

The Global Friendship Program brings international and domestic students together to build connections and foster cross-cultural experiences outside the classroom.

Katie Klingstedt, coordinator of international programs, said the hope for the program is that international students get to see what it’s like to live in America outside of a college campus. They are matched with a domestic student, a faculty member or a local family to meet with once a month for a semester.

“It’s definitely a cultural exchange,” Klingstedt said. “It’s very ‘we share, you share,’ and we all benefit from it.”

Baylor’s McBride Center for International Business is offering a variety of study abroad opportunities this summer for students in the business school. The application deadline is March 1.

Dr. Christina Iluzada, assistant director of the McBride Center for International Business, said the center aims to help students have global experiences.

“Our goal is, in the next 10 years, to be able to say, ‘Every business student who comes to Baylor has some kind of global engagement experience — whether that is studying abroad, or having an international internship, or doing their business admission program or having a coil class, which is a collaborative online international learning class,” Iluzada said.

Thirty-four finalists for the U.S. Government's flagship international exchange program far surpasses Baylor's previous high. 

This January, 14 Honors College students embarked on a two-week journey through Italy, immersing themselves in the Great Texts in Italy program. Guided by the expertise of Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts, Scott Moore, Ph.D., Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Dean Emeritus, Thomas Hibbs, Ph.D., and Senior Lecturer in the Honors Program Stacey Hibbs, Ph.D.,  students explored the various locales depicted in Dante’s Divine Comedy and visited culturally significant sites from the Italian Renaissance.

Baylor Health and Human Sciences students share study abroad experience meeting real healthcare needs.

Baylor’s Center for Global Engagement houses a variety of programs, including International Student and Scholar Services, study abroad and Global Gateway. Each department offers services that are uniquely catered to students’ needs and interests.

Mark Bryant, director of International Student and Scholar Services, said the program has several initiatives.

“We collaborate among ourselves and with other offices on campus to do all kinds of programming, to highlight international education, international opportunities for students and for faculty,” Bryant said. “We work with international scholars that come to campus from other universities — short-term and long-term scholars.”

Baylor is renowned for offering a caring community to students, an expression of hospitality grounded in the University’s Christian mission. That care for students is found in relationships across campus and in services that meet students’ distinct needs. Significant growth in the graduate student population, along with new programs commensurate to Baylor’s growth as an R1 research institution, have led to a renewed focus on programs and resources to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.

Wanting to study abroad over the summer? Dr. Luke Winslow is leading a study abroad trip to Spain, France, and Italy, AND you earn six credit hours through the program. For more information follow @baylorcomm_ineurope on Instagram. 

At a time when many universities are reducing their support in funding, programming and faculty and staff for foreign language and culture programs…

The Center for Global Engagement hosted its Study Abroad Fair during Dr Pepper Hour on Tuesday, ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline for winter programs.

Once a semester, the Center for Global Engagement hosts the event to showcase its programs and allow students to get a feel for the opportunities to come. There were representatives present at each of the 29 booths to speak to those interested in studying abroad.

Hundreds of students came to attend the Study Abroad Fair — excited not only about the programs themselves but also about the many merchandise items that were up for grabs.

Yulee, Fla., sophomore Brianna English went to Prague during the winter session and volunteered for the Study Abroad Fair. She said her favorite part of the event was seeing and meeting students who share the same love of adventure.

WACO, Texas (March 14, 2023) – Following a nationwide search, Baylor University Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., announced that Eduardo Contreras Jr., Ed.D., associate provost for international education, diversity and inclusion at the University of Portland, has been selected as Baylor University’s vice provost for global engagement, effective July 1, 2023.

This week, Baylor is hosting International Education Week. It is designed to promote and celebrate international exchange worldwide, according to Holly Joyner, assistant director of marketing and communications for the Center for Global Engagement.

Joyner is in charge of International Education Week and said the program began because of the Department of Education.

“International Education Week actually comes from the State Department and the Department of Education,” Joyner said. “Both those departments and the federal government come together and sanction one week every year to celebrate international education.”

Hosted from Nov. 7 to Nov. 11, Last Language Standing (LLS) is a weeklong competition among different languages taught at Baylor. The event is located in front of the Interactive Media & Language Center (iMLC) on the third floor of Draper Academic Building.

According to the LLS website, LLS allows languages to battle to see which one is used the most.

A daily prompt encourages participants to display their thoughts using languages other than English, answering on Post-its that they place on the walls of the third floor of Draper. Audio submissions are also allowed, and a QR code is provided at the site for audio entries.

According to the iMLC website, there are three methods to win: most posted language, most posted overall and most posted of the day. The prize includes bragging rights for a year, a mention on the social network and a gift card.

Hajime Kumahata, director of the iMLC, said there are three categories for the daily prompt: easy, intermediate and difficult. The levels cater to students’ lingual efficiencies, and the questions are from real-life situations rather than standard classroom scenarios like “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?”

“These are ‘silly’ questions, and we never use that in classroom situations,” Kumahata said. “That makes [the participants] think how they can apply the grammar and vocabulary that they learned in the classroom into these situations.”

Baylor student Elise Martin, received the William Marion Miller Prize for Academic Progress and determination in French.  The award was presented by Professor Aurore Guitry, ACM-IAU’s French Language Coordinator.  Students’ achievements were celebrated throughout the day, starting with a procession, followed by the ceremony, and ending with a beautiful reception. 

At Baylor, students hail from all 50 states (as well as the District of Columbia) and more than 100 countries around the globe. These students bring to campus the sum of their own experiences to weave the tapestry of their Baylor experience on the foundational loom of Christian community.

When Tavis King left his hometown of Chicago in 2021 to begin his Baylor journey, he felt all the nervous excitement that the transition to college brings.

“It was scary,” King says. “I was a 15-hour drive from home, from all my friends that I’d grown up with and gone to school with since third grade. I’d just always been used to knowing everyone’s face, even if I didn’t know them.”

Thanks to his experience at Baylor Line Camp, King quickly connected with a variety of students from different backgrounds and found the community he sought during his college search.

The fair was held during Dr Pepper Hour in the Barfield Drawing Room in the Bill Daniel Student Center. Holly Joyner, program director of Global Scholars at Baylor, is the lead for the Study Abroad Fair and said she works with the Center for Global Engagement on the event.

“The Center for Global Engagement oversees the event as a way to spotlight opportunities for Baylor students to study, intern or do research internationally,” Joyner said.

Dr. Bo White, director of study abroad, said the Center for Global Engagement wants to offer students a chance to grow and learn as individuals.

“I hope students see that there are many opportunities to include international education into their degree plan,” White said. “Baylor University has bilateral agreements with nearly 10 of the top 100 international research universities in the world, and this list is expanding. We hope students connect with faculty and staff and those who have gone before them to consider their next steps. The world needs a Baylor, and Baylor needs to put its footprint on the world.”

Message from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Study abroad programs return to normal after almost a full year of uncertainty on whether they will be available for students. Applications for study abroad programs are currently open for the summer and fall terms of 2022. Study abroad director Bo White, Ed.D., suggested that students start preparing early in the year. In the long run, he said it is more beneficial for students to get on these tasks, given they will have more options and availability for their intended courses.

Baylor University's Center for Global Engagement’s First Abroad Fellows Program received an Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion in International Education award by Diversity Abroad at the Global Inclusion conference.

The Center for Global Engagement partnered with the Paul L. Foster Success Center and hosted an International Dr. Pepper Hour on Tuesday in conjunction with the celebration of International Education Week on campus. Brandon Hoye, the international programs coordinator within the Center for Global Engagement, helped run the event, conversing with students and faculty about the program’s initiatives.

Baylor is celebrating International Education Week from Nov. 8 to Nov. 12 with events celebrating and promoting international exchange. The Center for Global Engagement coordinated the week’s activities, which are hosted by numerous organizations. International Education Week is an initiative by both the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education. It is being celebrated nationally from Nov. 15 to Nov. 19.

Global Baylor, one of the four major initiatives of Baylor’s Quality Enhancement Plan and internalization effort, has grown in its most student-facing and driven aspect: the Certificate in Global Engagement. The Global Baylor Initiative began in the spring of 2018 with the initial goal of having 40 students enrolled in the certificate program; as of recently, there are 308 students enrolled.

Social and biomedical scientists at Harvard University and Baylor University have joined forces to launch the largest initiative of its kind to investigate the factors that influence human flourishing. This $43.4 million initiative – “The Global Flourishing Study” (GFS) – will involve a five-year study of 240,000 individuals, representing 22 countries globally, with annual data collection across a broad range of well-being outcomes. This effort includes the data collection and management expertise of Gallup and the stakeholder coordination and open science leadership of the Center for Open Science. It also represents largest funded research project in Baylor’s history. What does it mean to live well? To be truly healthy? To thrive? Researchers and clinicians have typically answered these questions by focusing on the presence or absence of various pathologies: disease, family dysfunction, mental illness, or criminal behavior. But such a “deficits” approach tells only so much about what makes for a life well-lived – about what it means to flourish.

Dr. Toten Beard is a Professor of Theater History at Baylor University, where she teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate Theatre Studies courses. In 2012, she was named a Baylor Teaching Fellow, a recognition of great teaching with a cohort devoted to experiment in teaching. Dr. Toten Beard has also taught in the Baylor interdisciplinary core and is the past co-director of the Baylor in Oxford study abroad program. We are delighted to have Dr. Toten Beard on the show to discuss how place affects teaching, what students learn about themselves and each other and others when they study abroad.

In 2019, Baylor partnered up with a private company called Study Group to help internationalize the university through a pathway program called the Global Gateway Program (GGP). When the COVID-19 pandemic began, enrollment in the program was hit hard, but it is making a slow return. Dr. Cornell Menking, GGP’s director, said the program has begun to gain more students, with 223 in the program since spring 2019. He said the goal of the program is to help students from different countries become more acclimated in the American university environment by giving them a “soft landing” with some introductory courses to life on campus.

“Oxford and Cambridge universities have been beaten in a national league table for the first time after St Andrews was named the top university in the UK. No university before now has been placed higher than the elite Oxbridge institutions in the nearly 30-year history of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide.”

Study abroad programs are up and running this fall after being canceled in past semesters due to COVID-19. However, new travel restrictions from the European Union could affect international travel.

There are many reasons why musical creatives should expand their expertise and broaden their horizons with a degree. Sure, many artists topping the charts on Spotify would say otherwise; however, if you wish to gain employment –– in an orchestra, studio, opera, or even Broadway –– a degree can seriously pay off.

As more countries open their borders to U.S. travelers, many people have planned trips abroad. While there is debate around the ethics of international travel right now, there’s also a logistical factor that may get in the way of your vacation: an expired passport.

The Center for Global Engagement is offering alternatives to international learning due to the cancellation of study abroad trips through July 1 because of COVID-19 related travel restrictions. Students affected by the cancellations can apply to a later term in the event that study abroad restrictions are lifted, Dr. Bo White, director of the study abroad, said.

As we continue to navigate the complex and uncertain circumstances arising from the COVID- 19 pandemic, Baylor University has canceled all Study Abroad programs for Spring 2021.

When COVID-19 broke out in the U.S., many schools were closed and a large number of international students living on campus found that they no longer had a place to live. As an international student, my social media was full of posts from people who were looking for housing at that time. Fortunately, Baylor allowed all international students to continue to live on campus, and provided services, such as meals and grocery shopping shuttles. However, not all international students were as lucky as Baylor’s. I have a couple of friends in Seattle, Wash. who are international students from Japan and Korea. They ended up living in others’ living rooms or basements for a while.

Fulbright and Goldwater are two of the more prestigious names in higher education, thanks to the incredibly competitive scholarship awards that bear their names. It’s become commonplace for Baylor to win multiple such awards — last year, nine Baylor students were awarded either a Goldwater or Fulbright, building on successes over the the last few years.

The Office of the President announced earlier this month that all international mission trips and study abroad programs would be canceled this summer, but the University will, “explor[e] alternative opportunities and experiences for students as well as the possibility of opening up additional course sections over the summer months”. However, the effects have been far more immediate for current study abroad students and professors.

All study abroad and international mission trips for this summer have been canceled. We are exploring alternative opportunities and experiences for students as well as the possibility of opening up additional course sections over the summer months.

Baylor University’s Department of Public Safety and Center for Global Engagement continue to monitor the latest information on coronavirus (COVID-19) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of State. This resource page provides the latest updates on COVID-19 and any impact to the Baylor University campus and/or University-sponsored travel. More information about COVID-19 is available on the CDC website at www.cdc.gov/covid19.

The Academy for Teaching and Learning held a seminar about teaching international students on Tuesday afternoon in Jones Library with speakers Jeff Hamilton, Xin Wang and Daniel Barish.

All university-sponsored travel to China has been temporarily postponed due to a level three warning about travel that was released on Monday evening as a result of the Coronavirus. As this respiratory virus can be passed from person to person, Baylor said they have postponed travel to China for global safety and security. While it is unclear how long travel will be postponed for, it is something that could potentially last several months.

Of the nearly 15,000 undergraduate students on this campus, Baylor reported that 484 are international. These students, like American citizens and residents, will be looking for jobs after graduation and many of them would like to work in America. However, it can be difficult for them to attain these jobs because of the various regulations in place.

Baylor is hosting a week of events to celebrate International Education Week beginning Nov. 18. The week includes opportunities for international students to mingle with other students and faculty in addition to food, coffee and tea from around the globe.

Stories about Baylor's study abroad, international students and scholars, and other global initiatives that make Baylor a truly global campus.

Baylor’s mission has long been to prepare students for “worldwide leadership and service,” but the university is kicking that up a notch with a new emphasis known as “Global Baylor.”

Students learn leadership and service skills for an increasingly global society through Baylor's study abroad programs.

Baylor Students share their stories of being an international student on Baylor's campus and going abroad throughout the globe.

Helps Prepare Students for Leadership, Service in 21st-Century Global Society