Seventy-five years after launching America's first study abroad program, the University of Delaware is pleased to celebrate the vision of its founder - Prof. Raymond Kirkbride - by sending hundreds of students on study abroad programs every year. The first group to study abroad consisted of eight students in France; in 1998, 583 students went to 15 countries during the winter session alone.
Kirkbride's plan for the Junior Year Abroad would not have been possible without the support of private donors, or of then-University president Walter S. Hullihen. Hullihen felt strongly that study abroad was an invaluable experience. It prepared students for jobs with an international aspect, readied future teachers for their work, broadened minds and promoted an understanding of other peoples "which is the necessary condition of international good will about which we talk so much and do so little," as he said in a 1933 radio address carried nationwide.
Students came from all over, and many from prestigious institutions, to study in Paris (1923-48), Germany (1932-34) and Switzerland (1938-48). They braved seasickness and homesickness, immersing themselves in the language and culture of a foreign country; they studied beside native students and held their own, and participated in the celebrations of their host families. Christmas, 1929, found the Seventh Foreign Study Group hosting a Christmas party for poor Parisian children at the Universitys study center, complete with entertainment, candy, cocoa, presents and Pere Noel himself.
For these and other early study abroad participants enjoyed their experiences abroad so much that upon their return home, they formed an alumni association, the Delforians. Over the years, the Delforians held a number of reunions in different American cities, published a newsletter and even raised funds for an ambulance during WWII. (One student was so in love with France that she couldn't leave it behind; a 1933 newspaper account notes the secret marriage between a Wellesley senior and the young medical student she met in Nancy, France.) Several years ago, members of the XIIIth Group (1936-37) held their 50th reunion where they had originally met - in Paris.
Though the Delaware Foreign Study Plan was discontinued in 1948 because of post-War conditions in Europe and a new University president who felt that foreign study was not a priority, the importance of college-level study abroad had been demonstrated - and widely copied as well, as many more colleges and univerisites began to offer foreign study programs. By the 1990's, the University of Delaware had the largest study abroad winter program in the nation, offering more than 30 programs in 18 countries, carrying on the vision - three quarters of a century later - of the plan's originator, Raymond W. Kirkbride, and its first patron, Walter Hullihen.
