November 13 – 17 will mark the celebration of International Education Week at UF

Leonardo A. Villalón, Dean of the International Center

Under the theme “Global Gators, Global Citizens…Global Goals!”, the University of Florida is pleased to once again participate in the celebration of International Education Week (IEW), a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education.

In addition to being a U.S. top ten public university, the University of Florida is proud to be a global leader in the search to understand and to find solutions to the enormous challenges facing our globalized world. IEW provides an annual opportunity to celebrate the multiple international achievements of our UF students, faculty and staff, and to highlight our global goals.

The Gator Nation is home to over 6,600 international students from more than 150 countries. We host over 2,000 visiting scholars every year, and more than 2,200 of our students travel abroad to more than 55 destinations annually. On any given day, year-round, UF faculty and staff from all parts of the university can be found across the world, carrying out research, participating in conferences and workshops, or teaching. Some 2,000 UF faculty and staff have international backgrounds by birth or education, and bring international dimensions to their job and into our classrooms and laboratories every day.

In the current challenging international climate, UF seeks to build on these tremendous resources to become a truly global university. We invite all UF colleges, departments, and centers to celebrate their own contributions to achieving this goal by organizing international education activities during this week.

For questions related to International Education Week, and for help in publicizing your events, please contact Mabel Cardec at mcardec@ufic.ufl.edu or 352-273-1515. A list of activities hosted by the International Center, as well as other UF events marking IEW will be posted at http://ufic.ufl.edu/PD/IEW.html