Award for Innovative International Initiatives

Nanette Hanks has spearheaded a holistic approach to increasing education abroad within one of our largest colleges. She has envisioned and led the most intentional commitment to integrating learning abroad into the undergraduate experience in the college’s history, and was instrumental in adding two new positions in the college focusing on education abroad.

Nanette’s work to promote study abroad and to encourage faculty to find new ways to integrate education overseas in the liberal arts disciplines has been extraordinary. Her work with others in the college has been to develop new opportunities that better align with the academic and experiential goals of the majors. In particular, she has successfully persuaded collegiate leadership to provide both human and financial resources to the promotion of study abroad in order that this become an achievable, valid option for nontraditional students, in nontraditional locations, informing all of the disciplines.

In addition, her vision to include learning abroad into the career readiness initiative places CLA in a unique position among institutions with similar initiatives and is already paying off.