Celebrating 10 Years of the Global Gateway Initiative

On April 16, 2024, first and second-year students participating in the 2024 Global Gateway summer programs gathered together at a reception held in their honor to celebrate their achievements and up the excitement for the amazing adventures ahead. Student program participants, program leaders, campus partners, and International Academic Programs staff all came together for good food, captivating presentations from past Global Gateway students, and riveting conversations.

2024 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Global Gateway Initiative. The initiative consists of the Global Gateway summer programs as well as Global Gateway Fellowship scholarships for students to participate on other IAP semester or summer-long programs.

The Global Gateway summer programs are fully-funded programs that were created to give opportunities to first and second-year students with demonstrated financial need. Since 2014, these programs have been held in a variety of countries all around the world, including China, Brazil, and India. In 2024, the programs were hosted in Botswana, Singapore, and Washington, DC, with 47 student participants and five UW faculty program leaders who taught class and guided students on immersive and enriching excursions.

One can truly come to understand the Global Gateway Initiative and everything it stands for by taking a closer look at the values. These are:

• Global competency and experience necessary to succeed in today’s world.
• Continued global learning throughout a student’s career at UW-Madison.
• Reduction in financial barriers that prevent access to these opportunities.

To gain a sense of how these values are put into action, the 2024 cohorts were joined by participants on the 2023 Global Gateway summer programs so that they could hear their stories and see how others before them have gone above and beyond to stay engaged with global learning and bring new perspectives back to the UW-Madison campus.

The 2024 program participants were joined by Gloria Kapla (2023 Botswana cohort), Stacy H. Tran (2023 Singapore cohort), and Alejandro De La Torre (2023 Washington, DC cohort). All three students were asked to give remarks during the reception highlighting their experiences on their respective programs and the impacts Global Gateway has had on them academically, professionally, and personally.

Gloria Kapla, a student in the Wisconsin School of Business majoring in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics and hailing from Green Bay, Wisconsin, made it a point to emphasize to the 2024 cohort just how special the relationships formed on these summer programs are.

“Because the reality is that no one will truly understand your experience besides the students and professors who were right by your side the entire time it was happening,” she said candidly. “So definitely take advantage of all those new friendships you all are about to build.”

She also emphasized the large impact her time abroad has had on her professional skills and goals, sharing how such a unique experience has become a great talking point in job interviews and how things such as her communication skills have only improved since coming back from Botswana.

“[And] this can be just the beginning for you regarding study abroad even with financial restrictions,” Gloria shared along with the fact that she would be embarking on another study abroad journey in the spring of 2025 at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy through the Wisconsin School of Business.

Stacy H. Tran comes from Kansas City, Missouri and currently is pursuing majors in Educational Studies and Information Science, as well as certificates in Asian American Studies and Digital Studies. Stacy took this opportunity to expound upon the idea of how “breaking bread builds community.”

During her time on the Global Gateway summer program in Singapore in 2023, Stacy recounted how her cohort had the privilege of touring many mosques, temples, and other religious spaces as they explored the various religious identities and cultures throughout the country. She explained how building connections with various religious leaders and communities through sharing food ultimately had an incredible impact on the ideas and perspectives she brought back to the UW campus.

One post-program accomplishment that Stacy highlighted was the pop-up cafe she runs out of her own apartment. After volunteering at the Transfer Transition  Program, aimed at helping to connect transfer students to resources on campus and give them the tools to build great relationships and communities, Stacy said, “I had this itch to continue doing the work that I was doing [at the Transfer Transition  Program]. So I continued this practice of ‘breaking bread builds community’ out of my own home.”

Stacy’s pop-up cafe is open once a month and provides a space for community members to come together and share about their lives, build relationships, and eat tasty treats prepared by Stacy herself. She was happy to report that her cafe, Café 94, had raised over $1,000 for educational programming thanks to its loving patrons.

But Stacy also candidly talked about how her dreams for Café 94 and her plans for her future were not things that came to her right after stepping off the plane and back onto US soil.

“Truthfully, it wasn’t until many, many, many months and weeks after studying abroad that I had my epiphany,” she said. “Many of my peers left Singapore with clarity on what to do next(…)and amazingly so, and inspiringly so, they knew exactly what they wanted to do as a career.” She recounted how it wasn’t until much later, as she was putting together a menu for Café 94, that she truly came to understand “the magic and privilege of studying abroad.”

Rather than worrying about what comes next after study abroad and what moves to make to get a jumpstart on a career, Stacy compassionately reminded students, “You are exactly where you are supposed to be,” and to remain present through every step of their journeys.

Alejandro De La Torre was the final student speaker to share about his experience in Washington, DC. Alejandro is an Economics, Information Science, and Pre-Law major from Fontana, California.

He explained that, at the beginning, he had a preconceived idea of what kinds of experiences the DC area would harbor, thinking that the itinerary would be filled with museum tours, talks centered around politics and law, and lectures about the political history of the area.

And while politics and law are both certainly things one will encounter when traveling to the nation’s capital, Alejandro’s cohort took a different approach and instead explored cultural and geographical culinary diversity in Washington, DC and how the residents coming and going from the area shaped this collective history. From volunteering at a local organization called Food & Friends, which provides meals, groceries, and counseling in nutrition for individuals and families dealing with challenging illnesses, to going out as a class to try some of the culinary hot spots and hidden gems, these few weeks in DC were a far cry form what Alejandro had initially been expecting.

“I found that I really needed to sit with [these] experiences. And in the hours when we would get back from [an] excursion(…)and [even] months after, just seeing the idea that diversity and ultimately what a space is is far beyond what is reflected in headlines or in these creative imaginaries that we set for ourselves.”

Addressing the 2024 cohort directly, Alejandro encouraged them to “give and make spaces for understanding” throughout their experiences, really driving home the idea of global learning and gaining diverse perspectives through unique experiences and interactions.

Through the three returned student speakers in attendance, the 2024 Global Gateway summer program cohorts were able to see the values of the Global Gateway Initiative put into action. Using experiences abroad to develop community and relationships, explore new professional goals, and create a space for personal reflection and growth are just some of the things students can hope to achieve through the Global Gateway Initiative, and the returned students are living examples of such dedication and passion.