[458]MTSU SEARCHES FOR NEW STUDY ABROAD DIRECTOR

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 27, 2008EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

MTSU SEARCHES FOR NEW STUDY ABROAD DIRECTOR
MT Abroad’s Jennifer Campbell to Take Over Similar Job at Florida School

(MURFREESBORO) – Middle Tennessee State University will look to fill two positions in the MT Abroad office this summer as Jennifer Campbell, director of MT Abroad, prepares to depart May 30 and Brandon Fisher, coordinator, gets ready to leave in August. Campbell is slated to assume the job of Director of Study Abroad at her alma mater, Rollins College, in Winter Park, Fla., starting June 2. Fisher, an MTSU graduate who is pursuing a master’s degree in educational leadership, will teach English in France after two-and-a-half years as the office coordinator. “We’re going to miss Jennifer tremendously because she’s been essential to developing a lot of the policies and procedures that give us an infrastructure for running what is becoming a pretty large program,” says Dr. Anne Sloan, Assistant to the Executive Vice President and Provost for International Education. During Campbell’s nearly six-year tenure, all of MTSU’s study abroad opportunities, including those available through consortiums, exchange and faculty-led programs, were centralized in the MT Abroad office so that students can access program can access all programs from a single source. Under Campbell’s guidance, MTSU has sent more college students abroad than any other Tennessee Board of Regents institution. Also, although she says she did not accomplish it alone, Campbell maintains she is most satisfied with the establishment of pool of funding for worthy students. “It has taken five years to get here, but we finally have a study abroad scholarship,” she says. “I think a university MTSU’s size could easily send 500 or 600 (students out of the country), and I would have liked to have seen us get to that point. … I think once the scholarship word gets out to the students, you’re going to see things open up here at MTSU. You’re going to see things just soar.” Sloan says the MT Abroad office is responsible for the education and safety of sometimes close to 300 students around the globe at any given time, including athletic teams and students who travel under the auspices of the recreation center. If anything, she says, its mission has become more and more important over time. “We need to have more students who have interacted with cultures other than their own to prepare them for the marketplace of the 21st century,” Sloan says. “It’s no longer some little extra educational enhancement. Nationally, it has become more and more part of the educational mainstream.”

Campbell says she remains confident that international education will remain a strong priority at MTSU. “There’s a campus here that really believes in study abroad, puts their money where their mouth is and really supports international growth on this campus,” she says. For more information about study abroad opportunities at MTSU, contact the MT Abroad office at 615-898-5179 or go to http://www.mtsu.edu/~mtabroad.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color jpeg of outgoing MT Abroad Director Jennifer Campbell, contact Gina Logue in the Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.