UQ Vice-Chancellors Award for Internationalisation winners announced

Our partner UCWIP has recently received the Vice-Chancellor's Award for Internationalisation from the University of Queensland. Click here to read the full article.

Internationalisation of teaching and learning and leadership in the promotion of overseas mobility was celebrated at the announcement of five 2011 Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Internationalisation during The University of Queensland's (UQ) Teaching and Learning Week 2011. 

The awards were presented at a special ceremony on Wednesday, November 2, in the Eleanor Room of The UQ Club at the St Lucia campus as part of the University's annual Teaching and Learning Week celebrations. 

UQ's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) Dr Anna Ciccarelli said the awards, created in 2009, recognised those organisational units and individuals who had shown leadership in areas that furthered internationalisation of the University. 

Dr Ciccarelli said she was delighted the 2011 awards had received the highest number of nominations to date.

Awarded in three categories: organisational unit; staff member; and exchange partner and exchange student of the year.

Exchange Partner of the Year 
Eric K Federing, Creator of the Uni-Capitol Washington Internship Program for “Encouraging and promoting overseas student mobility and internationalisation of teaching and learning”. 

The program is a unique international exchange between Americans and Australians taking place in the United States Congress. Each year, a small group of Australian university students are given an opportunity to undertake an eight-week congressional internship. 

Mr Federing said UQ had been an exceptional partner in the exchange program. 

“You have only to glance through what some of your students have done after their internships to know the value these experiences have brought them beyond the particulars of two months spent in a wintery corner of the northern hemisphere,” he said. 

“I routinely tell the students that I believe I get the best part of this bargain. I get to give something of value back to Congress and to Australia. 

I get to engineer it all as well as I believe it can be done in a pro bono exercise. I get to be their cheerleader, with many scores of lasting friendships made along the way. 

“To say this effort of 13 program years has been a privilege is to understate its intrinsic value to me by many fold. I have so enjoyed working with everyone at UQ over the years. I thank you for your continued partnership, trust and, today, recognition.”

Click here to read the full article.