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Tuesday, March 19
The Indiana Daily Student

President McRobbie to visit Spain and France

IU’s Madrid study program is celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer.

With the golden anniversary of the program, IU President Michael A. McRobbie is leading a delegation overseas to participate in the festivities, according to an IU press release. The anniversary ceremony will take place Wednesday.

McRobbie’s trip will last 10 days and will began Monday, the release said. The visit will mark the McRobbie’s first trip to Spain and France as University president.

Around 370 IU students study in these countries each year.

In Madrid, IU currently collaborates with Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin at Universidades Reunidas to allow students to study abroad in Spain’s capital and largest city. The partnership started during the 1965-1966 academic year between IU and Purdue for students in advanced Spanish. Wisconsin joined the partnership in 1970.

“The remarkably successful and enduring Madrid study abroad program reflects the best of Indiana University’s longstanding tradition of international engagement and continuing key institutional emphasis on developing the global literacy of our students,” McRobbie said in the release.”

Nearly 3,000 students have participated in the program since its establishment.

“For a half-century now, this program has been a hallmark of our efforts to provide IU students with meaningful and immersive international experiences that can be life-changing and that, increasingly, our state’s employers are seeking as they recruit new talent,” McRobbie said in the release.

During the anniversary ceremony, McRobbie will present the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion to Complutense University President Carlos Andradas Heranz. This award is given for meritorious international service to IU or exceptional achievements worldwide, according to the release.

In France, McRobbie will meet with students participating in the Aix-en-Provence Program, which IU shares with the University of Wisconsin. He will also meet will faculty and administrators of France’s largest university Aix-Marseille Université.

His trip will finish in Paris where he will meet with senior leaders of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and Université Paris-Sorbonne.

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