When it comes to international education, the University of Georgia is among the crème de la crème. It’s ranked fifth among all colleges and universities in the U.S. for the number of students in studies abroad programs, and a full 30 percent of UGA undergraduates will have studied in other countries before they graduate.
Those facts light up Judy Shaw’s face, but these days they’re a tad bittersweet as well. The associate provost for international education will be retiring on July 1, after 33 years at UGA and four as head of UGA’s Office of International Education. Even more mellowing is the fact that 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the UGA at Oxford Program-an extremely successful and rigorous academic program that Shaw started when she was a professor in the English department and looking for a way to connect students to the world of English literature.
“I was in mid-career and though I loved teaching, I had been seriously considering returning to school to study law,” she said shaking her head. “But then I won a Sandy Beaver Teaching Professorship, and with that I got a grad assistant, and I began to re-think what I might be able to do. That’s when we decided to contact Oxford to see if they were interested in cooperating with a program for UGA students.”
The answer from the fabled British university was an enthusiastic “yes,” and so, in the summer of 1989, Shaw took the first group of 13 students to a new program headquartered in the university’s Jesus College. From the beginning, the coursework was bracing and tough. But the students loved it.
Applications for future sessions flowed in, and Shaw and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences suddenly found themselves with one of the hottest tickets around. By 1994, the program had changed to include a full spring semester program in addition to the annual summer semester.
In 1999, the program was moved to the Office of the Provost from the Franklin College because other colleges on the UGA campus were joining the pilgrimage. That year, UGA purchased the first Oxford Center, a lovely old building in town, and students lived there until an even more impressive structure was purchased in 2007.
In 2005, the program moved from Jesus College to Trinity College. That same year Shaw became interim associate provost for international education, after leading the program for 16 years. A year later, she was named permanently to the position, and in it, she has helped raise studies abroad programs at UGA to new heights and national prominence.
The responsibilities of OIE are broad and include overseeing UGA’s programs at Oxford and in Costa Rica, all studies abroad initiatives and activities, immigration services for students and more.
“The board of regents had earlier set a goal of having 25 percent of students involved with studies abroad programs before 2010, but we’ve already blown past that,” said Shaw. “In fact, UGA has more than 100 faculty-led studies abroad programs-more than any other university in the country.”
Shaw’s office provides support in a number of areas to all these programs, including handling financial set-up, assuring the health and safety of students, advising on academic rigor and oversight and handling the approval process for new programs as they come along.
One thing she’s quite proud of is that UGA studies abroad programs have moved from a Eurocentric model to one involving the entire world over the past decade. Students can now study in Africa, Asia and other places. Even better for taxpayers, most of these programs are self-supporting, based on fees paid by students.
Just as impressive is that while the worldwide economic crunch has slowed international education programs at many universities, nearly all UGA programs in this area are holding their own, with only a handful suspending activities out of more than 100.
While Shaw has wonderful memories of the program at Oxford, which continues to flourish, she felt it was time to retire and turn to another passion that’s been in abeyance for so many years: enjoying a horse farm on Barnett Shoals Road.
Still, she will be anything but out to pasture and will no doubt keep a keen eye on Olde England and the program she began so long ago.