(Montana) The Office of International Programs at Montana State University has announced the recipients of its second round of International Seed Grant awards.
The grants are designed to support learning experiences around the globe for MSU students and to help faculty create new, innovative study abroad programs. The first round of funding was announced in September 2024.
The full list of the grant recipients is available below
Cat Dale, professor in the School of Film and Photography, will design a two-week course focused on Scandinavian folktales and history adapted for modern audiences on-screen. Students will travel to either Stockholm or Gothenburg in Sweden and focus on writing and researching short, culturally informed screenplays.
Mark Hom, professor in the Jake Jabs College of Business and Entrepreneurship, will design a program in Scotland for students to learn about international human resources practices and build skills for careers in a global market.
Elizabeth Johnson, assistant professor in the Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing, will visit Rwanda to pursue interdisciplinary partnerships in health care. The grant will fund visits to Rwandan clinical and design sites to explore possible partnerships with MSU’s nursing program.
Betsy Johnston, faculty in the leadership fellows certificate program in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, will visit Tunisia to plan for a new short-term study abroad program focused on fostering global citizenship, leadership and service. The program will connect two MSU initiatives: the Leadership Fellows Certificate Program and the Middle East Partnership Initiative Student Leaders Program.
Nikki Michaels, academic adviser for Gallatin College MSU, will use Gallatin College’s first-ever International Seed Grant to plan a two-week study abroad course to Tanzania, where students will hone intercultural communication skills through immersive, service-based experiences.
Peter Schweppe, professor of German in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, will design a course based in Croatia where students will perform comparative historical research on the Holocaust and genocide.
Molly Secor, professor and associate dean in the nursing college, will visit Kenya to expand the faculty-led study abroad locations in nursing to offer a global internship experience for students each semester in the fields of midwifery and family and mental health nurse practitioners.
Sophia Seffrood, a Food Product Development Lab researcher in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, will visit Cape Town, South Africa, to explore the potential for a study abroad program focused on global sustainable food systems.
Vandana Sood and Jaya Mukhopadhyay, professors in the College of Arts and Architecture, propose a course in India to explore architectural spaces and lived cultural practices in Leh, Ladakh, to understand how global forces interact with local traditions.
Eric Sproles, professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, will travel to Slovenia to create a course focused on how the country’s human and physical geography helped shape trade routes between Europe and the East for the Roman, Venetian and Hapsburg empires.
