History of Overseas Study

IU has a long history of faculty-initiated study abroad programs. The oldest recorded programs were called Summer Tramps, first established in 1879 by David Starr Jordan, a biologist and the future president of the university, together with a language professor. For almost a decade they led a series of summer ‘tramps’ to Europe with 20-30 students and faculty to study natural history, language and culture in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France and England (including 300 miles of hiking in a three month period!). The program was so important that it was listed in the academic catalogue each year. Credit at IU wasn’t established until 1890 but the historical references on file indicate that these trips were considered academically-focused.

The short-term program model initiated in the 19th century continued into the 20th century. In 1929 the School of Music established a six-week Summer School in Munich for which students received 7 ½ credits in music, art and languages (and for the latter they had to be examined by the art faculty and language departments at IU upon their return). A decade later, in1939, the School of Education created a summer program in Mexico, with credit toward student degrees. The focus on Mexico continued with a 1952 Department of Spanish and Portuguese summer program in Mexico City for Spanish majors with arranged home stays. Around the same time period, a consortium emerged, entitled the Indiana Intercollegiate Study Projects, which ran from 1954-1969. It involved 15 colleges and universities in Indiana that set up summer programs for its students in Mexico, England, France and Spain. The academic fields included in the UK program included Business administration, English, History, Journalism, Political Science, Sociology, Theatre.  The Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures took the first Russian Language Study Tour for undergraduate students to the USSR in the summer of 1959 with special funding from the Carnegie Corporation.  Although IU concentrated on primarily college level programs, in 1962 a special program was established by the University for high school students. The first program was set up in Mexico and additional sites were eventually established for high school students in Germany, France and Spain and continue to operate today under the auspices of the Office of International Programs.

Despite this initial trend of summer programs, the institution began to invest its program development efforts in full immersion programs for an academic year. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese set up an academic year program in Lima, Peru in 1959. This was the first U.S. program in the southern hemisphere and involved fully integrated courses in all disciplines with students housed with families. This eventually became a national consortium and ran for over 30 years until it was suspended in 1990 because of terrorist activity. In 1964 IU and Purdue University collaborated to set up three joint programs in Spain, France and Germany. The Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences established a faculty committee to visit multiple institutions abroad from which to select partner institutions. The committee included professors representing the Departments of Spanish, Chemistry, German, French as well as the registrar, dean’s assistant and dean for international students. The program model was to have students direct enroll in universities abroad, supervised by rotating faculty directors, with salaries paid by their home departments. The first formal ‘review’ of these programs occurred in 1966 with representatives from IU and Purdue.

Around this time a Foreign Study Committee of the faculty members who had launched the academic programs was established to have oversight over the collection of growing programs. This committee operated under the guidance of the College of Arts and Sciences until 1967, when an Associate Dean of the College was given the directorship of IU’s programs since the work had become unwieldy for a faculty committee. It didn’t take long for the institution to set up a formal office for International Programs, which was established as a system-wide unit with centralized quality control responsibility over all international activity across all campuses of Indiana University. This included an Office of Overseas Study, established in 1972 with a Director/Associate Dean, reporting to the Dean for International Programs, who in turn reports to the President. The office, since its inception, has direct responsibility for all IU study abroad programs throughout the eight-campus system.

The Foreign Study Committee was renamed the University Committee on Overseas Study and eventually the Overseas Study Advisory Council (OSAC). It is chaired by the Director of Overseas Study and is charged by the President to evaluate all proposals throughout the system for any organized activity abroad, regardless of credit, which includes IU students, graduate or undergraduate. The Council, with representation from multiple campuses in the IU system, ensures that programs have the support of an academic unit and that the course work is integrated into the curriculum. The Council routinely requires that students select a full-integration option where one is available (i.e. a mainstreamed course, an internship or a service learning component). The Council also ensures that the programs are designed to have students prepared in some way for the language environment of the host country. OSAC also monitors the proposals for appropriate support services as well as security issues. The Council has two subcommittees—the Review Committee, responsible for the program evaluation process and the Safety and Responsibility Committee, responsible for formulating safety and security policies, including program suspensions or cancellations.

Today the Overseas Study Advisory Council is responsible for a set of administered programs managed by the Office of Overseas Study, co-sponsored programs offered in partnership through providers or organizations abroad and autonomous programs developed and managed directly through academic units throughout the IU system. The current study abroad profile includes over 2,500 students abroad.   IU currently has over 250 administered, co-sponsored or autonomous programs, including programs from all schools: Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering, Business, Education, Music, Health and Physical Recreation, Public Policy and Administration, Law, Nursing, Optometry, Journalism, Social Work.