Ambassador Stephen Mull

South Africa was a major focus for Global Affairs this month with the visit of a pan-University delegation to Cape Town to explore new engagement opportunities, the appointment of a new Director for Global Initiatives who is exploring options for establishing a University office there, and the announcement of a major philanthropic gift that, when complete, will help support need based scholarships for at least 20 undergraduates to study there each year.

Ambassador Steve Mull shares the details of global partnerships and expansion in the works at Global Affairs for 2024.

During these difficult times, it is important to rededicate ourselves to the values that make this University great and good by caring for those in our community who are most traumatized by these events; creating safe spaces for empathy, mutual understanding, and free inquiry into the history of this conflict and the search for an equitable peace; and respecting the right of all to express their views civilly and peacefully without fear of reprisal. 

The new academic year in the Global Affairs family promises to set historic records in the University’s rapidly growing international engagement, with substantial increases in study abroad opportunities with expanded scholarship support; plans to establish new permanent UVA offices in key regions around the world; and expanded staffing to support more global opportunities right here on Grounds.

Ambassador Steve Mull, Vice Provost for Global Affairs on the global engagements this academic year and looking ahead

The convergence of so many prominent democracy advocates on Grounds in March and April is a powerful reminder of the global resonance of the values on which our University was founded, and that while we have a lot to learn still about democracy, we also have much to give and inspire. 

Robyn Hadley, Vice President and Dean of Students Chief Student Affairs Officer along with Ambassador Steve Mull, Vice Provost for Global Affairs reach out to the Indian Community

Robyn Hadley, Vice President and Dean of Students Chief Student Affairs Officer along with Ambassador Steve Mull, Vice Provost for Global Affairs reach out to South Korean community

Vice Provost for Global Affairs says that during his visit to India, they discovered a remarkable range of opportunities of potential interest and benefit to UVA even beyond the already successful engagement in India with the Yamuna project

Our first thoughts are with the members of our University community with family and friends in increasingly perilous circumstances in Ukraine. As Interim Dean of Students Julie Caruccio and I wrote to our Ukrainian students a few weeks ago, the University stands ready to support them during this deeply upsetting time.

The University of Virginia Global Affairs joins the world in mourning the untimely death of Dr. Paul Farmer, who died on Monday while working at the University of Global Health Equity in Butaro, Rwanda, an institution he helped to begin and to which he devoted so much of his life. 

UVA’s strategic goal to create opportunities for every undergraduate to have an international experience before graduation – our critical mission in Global Affairs – begs a fundamental question: what exactly is an international experience?  

COVID-19 struck earlier this year just as UVA was making strong progress on its global aspirations with a record number of study abroad and globally-themed research programs, a growing population of international students, a quickening pace of internationally-themed events on Grounds, and ever more ‘Hoos moving on to global careers from the Peace Corps to private enterprise. As we prepare for extended operations under the pandemic, we struggle with the uncertainty of when borders will reopen, visa processing will resume, and safe travel will return.

From the beginning of the pandemic over a year ago, there has been an alarming and misguided tendency of some to blame and attack members of America’s Asian-Pacific community, including assaults on the streets, bullying in schools and on playgrounds, and hateful rhetoric from political leaders, creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.

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.

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.

Few elections have had more significant implications for the future of America’s engagement with the world, including in the field of higher education, than this year’s just-concluded ballot. 

Americans bid a sad farewell to legendary jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg in recent weeks, simultaneously celebrating her extraordinary contributions over 50 years to advancing gender equality and other important human rights issues in the United States. Justice Ginsburg’s life affirmed what all of us in international education have long known to be an essential truth: that study and research abroad transform and enrich individual lives, and more broadly, the character of nations. 

Six months after the COVID-19 pandemic upended American life, we’ve experienced more than enough of its sweeping negative impacts across every part of our society. Nevertheless, we know from history that societies tend to emerge from pandemics with greater resilience, innovation, and intellectual and economic growth.

America’s higher education community faced a new challenge to our global mission this month with the announcement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that international students would be denied visas or face deportation if they did not participate in some in-person study this fall, regardless of public health guidelines aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.

Last month, I wrote about UVA’s exciting return to study abroad with up to 300 students planning to participate in overseas programs during the coming semester after the COVID-related drought in international travel over the past two years.  But that is only a part of the story in

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. 

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

One of most serious impacts of COVID-19 on UVA’s mission last year was the sudden cancellation of every one of our study abroad programs.  Between January and March of 2020, we scrambled to support the return of over 400 of our students, researchers, and faculty back to the United