Butler University’s Center for Global Education has been awarded a grant of nearly $100,000 from the Freeman Foundation to enable students to complete internships in East and Southeast Asia in the summer of 2015.

The Center will organize a group experience—Butler Summer in Shanghai—in which 12–14 students will travel with a China-specialist member of the Butler faculty to Shanghai for a six-week program of individually designed internships combined with group excursions and cultural immersion activities.

Monte Broaded, Director of the Center for Global Education, said the Center will also be able to award 5-7 “at-large” grants to individual students who organize their own internships during summer 2015 or during the 2015-16 academic year.

In all, the grant will enable the Center to make 19 awards of $5,000 each, which will offset a significant portion, though not all, of the total participation cost.

The Center will hold information sessions about the program in the first two weeks of the spring semester. Applications for the summer program will be due by Friday, February 6.

Broaded said that because of Butler’s emphasis on combining liberal arts education with pre-professional training, experiential learning opportunities—such as internships—play an important role in each of Butler’s six colleges. More than 600 Butler students participate in internships and related experiences each year.

Butler also has a strong commitment to global engagement. The University consistently ranks in the top 25 master’s institutions nationwide in the proportion of undergraduates who study abroad. In recent years, Butler has placed 4-6 students each year in academic-credit-bearing internships in East and Southeast Asia locations, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

 

Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822