As classes wrap up this December, among them will be a series of courses in the Engagements curriculum that bring first-year students out of their worlds and into the global.

The International Student Citizen Leaders Fellowship has chosen a new cohort of fellows for this academic year.

UVA PhD Candidate Josué Godoy talks with UVA Global's Emily Mellen about his project on Indigenous activism in Colombia during the 1970s.

Reese Hertel learned to appreciate nature while growing up in Charlottesville. Now, he seeks to bring his passion for the environmental global, interning in Guatemala and studying in Valencia to prepare himself for career as a Latin America-focused environmental engineer.

CGII grant recipients Charles Bradley and Abigail Bradford talk about their projects in Greece. Bradford will be researching "Aulos and Audience in the Ancient Greek Musicscape" while Bradley will be working on "Understanding Early Childhood Development in Emergencies: An Inhabited Institutionalist Analysis of Humanitarian Programming for Young Children and Caregivers."

Trisha Gulati is one of the co-directors of international student affairs on UVA Student Council. When she is not attending classes, she likes to play Tennis and sing. Along with the Student Council, she is also actively engaged in the Thai Student Organization, International Relations Organization and Frank Batten Investment Fund.

Double-Hoo Alex Misbach takes us back to Shea House from the perspective of the Programs Facilitator and a Russian language instructor. His advice? Think critically in your language learning, take advantage of language immersion opportunities at UVA, and, if you can, go abroad and get out of your comfort zone!

In early March, a group comprising of UVA faculty, students and community members undertook a one-week trip to Germany, the roots of which were laid on the fateful day in 2017 when the far-right groups marched through Grounds and the city. By visiting the different cities in Germany, the group wanted to understand how the cities like Berlin and Weimar have engaged with histories of colonialism, the atrocities of holocaust and memorialized it and bring those lessons back to the UVA community.

Jie Lu is a second-year student majoring in Commerce. But she is also a stellar table tennis player who just represented UVA in National Championships.

Ren Capucao is a nurse, nurse historian, and PhD candidate and talks about his dissertation study "Pressed into Starched Whites: Nursing Identity in Filipino American History.

Fourth year international student Sara Feng introduces us to Shea House, a UVA’s on-grounds residential site for immersion in seven languages. She talks about her global experiences and why she became a Shea House language assistant.

Mary Byron graduated in December 2021 with a bachelor’s in Cognitive Science with a Neuroscience concentration and was awarded Highest Distinction from the cognitive science distinguished majors program. Growing up in Reston, Virginia, Byron chose the Global First program and spent the first semester in London, United Kingdom and credits it as key to her UVA experience.

As the cancellations followed for different global internships scheduled for the summer, Ingrid Hakala, director of global internships didn’t give up. Instead, she reached out to her partners, who would host students in different countries. With their partnership, she launched an experimental virtual global internship program for UVA students.

International students Abbis Haider Jaffri, Hamed Joodaki, and Huiru Shen talk about their UVA experience, future plans, and advice for new international students.

Sara Krivacsy is graduating from UVA’s College of Arts & Sciences with a Global Public Health major and Anthropology minor. She is planning to become a practitioner in global public health at a time of unprecedented change and challenge. She reflects on her experiences at UVA and how it has expanded her perspective for global engagement.

Erica Stephens is getting ready to graduate next month with major in Cognitive Science and a minor in Health & Wellbeing from University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Science.

When Steve Monaghan graduated from University of Virginia in 1980 in Asian Studies, he didn’t know that his fluency in written and spoken Chinese would shape his life and career for the next four decades.

For the first time since it was launched, Center for Global Health Equity held their Global Health Case Competition online. But it did not dim the enthusiasm.

Nancy Huai is a first year MBA student at Darden School of Business from China. During the pandemic with the embassy closures, she was unable to get a visa from China to come to Charlottesville.

As we launch the 2021 spring semester this month amid continuing challenges from the COVID-19 threat, the contours of the post-pandemic world are emerging.  Steadily accelerated vaccinations, improved compliance with public health measures, strides in treating the disease, and the resilience of our students and faculty in mastering new ways to learn and research are creating conditions to spring back even stronger after the pandemic.

The J-term courses offered at the University of Virginia this January provided a unique opportunity for students to engage in global topics, gain new perspectives, and go beyond the classroom virtually.

Olivia Fyre, is a 3rd year student majoring in Global Health Studies and minoring in Religious Studies.

UVA is in the top 12 U.S. universities for short-term study abroad programs, according to the annual Open Doors report released Nov. 16 by the Institute of International Education, a New York-based nonprofit.

Building back UVA’s global engagement will be one of the more exciting and urgent challenges we face as a University as we emerge from the COVID shadow in the coming months.  Since evacuating hundreds of our students and faculty from locations around the world beginning last January, we’ve suffered a painful retrenchment of our education abroad programs that will continue through the coming spring semester and significantly curtailed our global research activity.

More than 395 UVA students took virtual language classes this summer which included French, Italian and Spanish. Among them was Giovanna de Almeida, a 4^th year student majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology.

As programs moved to online and virtual worlds due to the pandemic, CAELC’S Volunteers with International Students, Staff, and Scholars (VISAS) Program is keeping up with the changes.

Stephanie Greenfield is a cognitive science major concentrating in neuroscience. Her interests in global health started early – in high school, when she went to Haiti, Nicaragua and Dominican Republic on medical missions.

Ahana Das, a first-year student at the Darden School of Business talks about starting at University of Virginia in the middle of a pandemic, her journey to the Grounds, and her hopes for the coming year.

Joshua McCray, a rising third-year student at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, was planning to research the effectiveness of Tongan traditional medicine in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga this summer before the pandemic plans cancelled his travel and research plans.

Lea Taylor is a rising 4th year student at UVA majoring in Global Studies and an intern at UVA Sustainability.

Rayness Mollinedo is from Sterling, Virginia, but his family came from Bolivia. This third-year students is majoring in Public Health Sciences and his interests align with health literacy within the Latino community. 

This month as epidemiologists study the potential threat from the omicron variant, pandemic hospitalizations rise with the onset of winter, and travel requirements tighten again, Global Affairs is pleased to celebrate a small but important victory over COVID. 

Despite losing spring and summer participation due to the pandemic, the University of Virginia remained among the top 25 doctoral-granting institutions in the number of its students who study abroad, according to the annual Open Doors report released Nov.

Benjamin Hill is a fourth-year student studying Global Development Studies and Religious Studies. Outside of his studies, the Filipino-American born and raised in Northern Virginia loves reading, comics, growing plants, and singing.

Global Week once again hosted a series of in-person opportunities for engagement this year after being all virtual last year.

The Biden administration took office in January vowing to substantially strengthen U.S.

Frisbees and balls flew across the Nau/Gibson courtyard amidst sounds of lively conversation and the drifting smell of Pearl Island’s Caribbean fare.

Matias Vilaplana Stark is a doctorate student in McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia.

In an effort to highlight global research and the vibrant global scholar community at UVA, Center for Global Inquiry + Innovation in the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs has announced a new brown bag lunch series starting this fall.