As 44 students prepare to leave for their semester study abroad in Leipzig, Oxford and Montevideo, the Office of International Programs and Study Abroad has adjusted the length of the semester trip and is exploring locations in Spain to replace the South America program.

The trip to Oxford will led by Dr. Shelly Sanders, professor of English, and will take 23 students. Fifteen students will join Dr. John Boyles, an associate professor of Bible, missions and ministry, to Leipzig, and the Montevideo trip, which will include five students, will be led by Dr. Omar Palafox, assistant professor of intercultural studies.

This semester’s trips will be 12 weeks instead of 14 weeks like trips in the past, said Mark Barneche, executive director of international education and study abroad.

“So our students in our current immigration status need to limit their stay in country to under 90 days and so our stay in country now is 89 days,” Barneche said. “What has been our policy in the past with countries has not been strictly in keeping with local immigration law and so we’re trying to bring that more in alignment with local law.”

The hub site in Montevideo will close after this semester because it was not growing and too few students participated, Barneche said.

“We made the decision to close the Montevideo program based around the ability for that program to grow meaningfully,” said Barneche. “So the facility in Montevideo was quite small, and as a small facility, the total occupancy of students that it could take never really made financial or operational sense and so we’ve decided to go to another location where we think there’s a high capacity of students who could join that program in a place that students really want to go and sort of understand.”

The location in Spain was chosen as a replacement for Montevideo because of its location, popularity and the quality of Spanish spoken, Barneche said.

In the spring, Study Abroad also introduced language lunches on the first Wednesday of every month to bring together students who speak a common language outside of English, said Lindsay Snyder, study abroad coordinator.

“If you speak another language, we want to get together, because language can unite people in a really unique way and can create bonds between people,” Snyder said. “It also gives students the opportunity to connect with other people that they may not know otherwise, and be able to connect through language, whether that’s a language that they’re just learning, or maybe a language that they grew up speaking.”

The applications for the summer and fall of 2025 and the spring of 2026 are currently open on the Study Abroad website. The priority deadline is Oct. 1 and the final deadline is Nov. 1.

“Study Abroad is a really unique opportunity for students to be able to explore the world with their peers and with the support and guidance of an educational institution,” said Snyder. “This is an opportunity where students experience a lot of personal growth, where they generally experience a lot of spiritual growth.

“You’re outside of your comfort zone, you’re outside of your typical community, and so you get to learn a lot more about yourself,” she said. “You get to learn a lot more about God and about the world that God has created.”