Summer 2012, Table of Contents

The Value of Study Abroad Confirmed
Ramón Saldívar Appointed Director of BOSP
Discovery & Exploration
Moveable Feasts
Oxford Revisited
Commemoration
BOSP Photo Contest
Britain VII Reunites
Florence Program Honors Anna Nicoletti
Appreciation
Germany VI Presents Gift to BOSP
Supporting BOSP







Robert Sinclair
Photo credit: L.A. Cicero, Stanford News Service

The Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford Confirms the Value of Study Abroad

Irene Kennedy, Executive Director of BOSP, and
Bob Hamrdla, Editor, Abroad

Last winter the University released its most recent significant review of undergraduate education, The Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford University, January, 2012. Examining the meaning and substance of undergraduate study, “the report encourages both students and teachers to reconsider what they do, how they do it, and why it matters [Foreword].” The Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) figured significantly in the report and its recommendations.

In its section on Overseas Studies, the authors (a committee of faculty, students, and staff) note that “we believe that study abroad advances virtually all of the essential aims of a Stanford education. Most obviously, it affords students an opportunity to deploy and deepen their language skills, but it does much more than that. An abundance of evidence confirms that students return from study abroad more confident of their ability to adapt to new challenges and circumstances, more sensitive to cultural and political difference, more adept at cross-cultural communication, and generally more reflective about the world and their place within it. Study abroad also offers an ideal platform for what we call ‘integrative learning,’ offering students opportunities to connect what they learn in the classroom with other aspects of their lives and experience. In all these ways and more, students returning from overseas study are better prepared to shoulder the responsibilities of local, national, and global citizenship.”

Having established that BOSP’s centers generally and successfully integrate the specific characteristics of their venues and their courses, the Report continues, “For all the differences in approach, all the BOSP programs share the same overarching educational philosophy, a philosophy that harmonizes wonderfully with the approach embraced by the SUES committee: In a world that is experiencing growing international dependencies, complexity and conflicts, it has become more important than ever for Stanford undergraduates to gain a much deeper understanding of the world outside of the United States of America. [BOSP] strives to enable as many Stanford undergraduates as possible to learn—through courses, research, field studies, seminars, and internships overseas—about problems and issues that confront the world and to extend the Stanford undergraduate experience by providing intellectually challenging, profound, and exciting opportunities for study abroad.”

SUES also pointed out that BOSP’s alums respond highly favorably to their time overseas. “Presented with a long roster of possible recommendations, alumni responded most favorably to ‘Multiply[ing] opportunities to ensure that all students have an option to study abroad,’ with over 80 percent of 72 Overseas Studies respondents rating the idea as ‘beneficial’ or ‘extremely beneficial.’

“Presented with the open-ended question, ‘Overall, what did you learn at Stanford in or out of the classroom that has been most valuable to you since your graduation, in your professional and/or personal life?’, respondents turned again and again to their experiences overseas. The following comments, a sample culled from different classes and describing different campuses, convey the value of overseas study far more eloquently than we can:

“My time at Stanford-in-Germany stands out as a key milestone in my life. It enabled me to develop a deeper understanding of the ‘true scope’ of the world and to understand other cultures. It also provided me the time and opportunity to reflect on the vector of my career, which resulted in my changing my major and moving in a completely different direction.…I will be eternally grateful for this change. (Class of 1965)

“Stanford-in-Italy tops the list, for the obvious reasons: learning a language, travel, living in a new environment, seeing a world of art I never knew existed, forging strong, lasting friendships. (Class of 1965)

“The greatest impact on my life in general had to have been the overseas campus experience, which not only included six months in Vienna but a 17-day field trip to the Soviet Union…[That] perspective on alternative cultures and political systems gave me a healthier, more balanced view of our world. (Class of 1975)

“The most valuable lessons I learned at Stanford were from my overseas experience and travel, where I learned to make my way in an unfamiliar world and developed a curiosity about other cultures and points of view. (Class of 1975)

“Overseas studies helped me place myself and my life in a much broader context. I also had to rely on myself only, and learned that I can...It really opened my mind and frame of reference. I loved the freedom associated with the experience. (Class of 1985)

“The most important experience for me was studying at Stanford-in-Oxford. I had the most engaged intellectual experience of my life in the one-on-one tutorials I took…It was as if something ‘clicked’ in England, and helped me realize the preposterous wealth of academic and intellectual resources that Stanford offers…I hadn’t taken full advantage before that time, and I often wish that I could ‘go back’ and do my first two years over again. (Class of 1995)

“I come from a poor family and would never have gotten the chance to travel without Stanford, and travel is so essential to personal and professional growth. Plus my Oxford tutorial was the most intense academic experience of my life. (Class of 2005)"

The report concluded that “All of these findings confirm our conclusion that the BOSP experience offers Stanford students unique learning opportunities that contribute directly to their growth as global citizens. Indeed, the qualities described in our alumni surveys...—linguistic facility, self-reflectiveness, cultural sensitivity, self-reliance, adaptability...—are precisely the qualities our students will need to flourish in the complex, ever-changing world that awaits them [73].”
The Study also presents several findings and recommendations having to do with BOSP:

1. “Particularly disappointing is the failure of many students returning from overseas study to continue with language instruction or to pursue senior theses using foreign language sources. Having conducted no specific study on the phenomenon, we are loath to offer any explanation, though it appears to have something to do with the escalating demands on students’ curricula. In one of its surveys, the WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] committee asked students whether they planned to continue language study. Some 78 percent indicated that they hoped to do so, but substantially fewer actually do. For those who answered the question in the negative, the most frequently cited reason was that ‘too many other course requirements limit my ability to continue [32].’ The Study recommends that the University “[d]evelop opportunities and incentives for students to pursue advanced language instruction. The development of a ‘Proficiency in Foreign Language’ certificate represents an important step in this direction, as does the creation of a Foreign Language minor.”
“As the foregoing makes clear, the SUES committee strongly endorses the value of study abroad and approves of the diverse approach that BOSP has taken in delivering it. We have only a few recommendations to add:

1. “The university should continue to expand the number and variety of overseas opportunities for our students.

2. “Everyone at Stanford, from faculty members who oversee majors to coaches of athletic teams, should work to reduce obstacles to study abroad for our students, so far as that is possible. In cases where it is simply not possible for students to take an entire quarter abroad, we call upon the university to develop alternative overseas opportunities. The planned revival of September Overseas Seminars represents an important step in this direction. Such seminars could be supplemented with summer programs, which might also help to alleviate capacity issues at some popular BOSP campuses. Summer programs would likely pose some complications in terms of financial aid, but we believe that these issues can be solved.

3. “Stanford faculty and administrators should look favorably on courses taken abroad when assessing fulfillment of both major and general education requirements. We urge BOSP to work proactively with departments and programs to identify, among the courses it delivers on its overseas campuses, those that might count toward specific majors, and to secure advance departmental approval of those courses, reducing uncertainty and freeing students of the burden of petitioning for credit.

4. “We encourage BOSP to be innovative and flexible in the way in which it deploys Stanford faculty at overseas campuses [74].”

BOSP is pleased to share with you the findings of the study that confirm and endorse what our 28,000 alums have experienced: the founding of the Stanford overseas campuses program in 1958 has resulted in a major enhancement of undergraduate education at Stanford. At the same time, the charge to expand the number and variety of overseas opportunities is consistent with our own thinking about developing alternative program models that address the needs of under-represented students with limited time in their academic programs for a full quarter abroad. Science and engineering majors and student athletes may well be the first groups to take advantage of emerging opportunities for short-course seminars, summer programs, and consortia in non-traditional locations.

Ramón Saldívar Appointed Director of BOSP

Harry J. Elam Jr., the Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, recently announced Saldívar’s appointment as Academic Director of the Bing Overseas Studies Program:
“Professor Saldívar joins the program at a time when the program is thriving and serves a large portion of the undergraduate population,” said Elam. “His challenge will be to build on these successes and act on the recommendations from the Study of Undergraduate Education at Stanford [see additional article on p. 1] to further enhance the options for undergraduate students to study abroad and fully integrate their education in a global context.”

Saldívar’s appointment is effective September 1, 2012. Watch for a full announcement in the next issue of Abroad.

Moveable Feasts

Peter Kretzman (’78, AB, English and German Literature) and his daughter, Anneka Gerhardt (’12, AB, Science, Technology, and Society) combined efforts in writing about respective experiences at Stanford overseas that were full of import for their later lives.

Dateline: Stanford-in-Berlin, 1976. A brief slideshow of still-sharp Overseas Program memories: a fragrant currywurst mit pommes frites from a sidewalk stand; learning to avoid the smoker cars on the U-bahn (subway); admiring the soaring acoustic baffles that adorned the ceiling of the Berliner Philharmonie; laboriously reading Kafka at the rate of an hour a page; enduring intense passport scrutiny at Checkpoint Charlie during visits to the other-worldly East Berlin that lay on the other side of the Berlin Wall; first faltering but then ever livelier conversations with an elderly landlady. A callow Stanford sophomore, suddenly aswim in language and culture and politics, gaining untold experience and perspective that would deeply affect the rest of his life.

Fast-forward 35 years: Anneka Gerhardt (class of 2012), following in her dad’s footsteps (not precisely, but in spirit and impact), studying for two quarters in a different but equally world-famous bustling cultural metropolis, via Stanford-in-Paris. Anneka’s Parisian slide show fades in: countless trips on Paris’s RER B transit line, shuttling between class and home, with métro map and Paris Pratique as closest allies; a long paper (in French!) on the facade of Notre Dame d’Amiens; sudden fluency miraculously materializing during intense negotiation with a sidewalk vendor on the steps of Sacre Coeur; struggling with the unstated but severe expectations of French professors unused to holding Americans’ hands; the dazzling disequilibrium of having been suddenly transported to a land which, despite seven years of language study, had seemed equally mythical to Narnia; and then, the overwhelming profound gratitude and wonder evoked by the biggest Parisian winter storm in 25 years, bedecking the Eiffel Tower in snow just before Christmas.

Two cities, two similar-yet-unique picturesque experiences spanning the decades, and two lives, father and daughter, touched forevermore. This kind of passing the baton will happen more and more (and has surely happened multiple times already) as the Bing Overseas Studies Program hits new milestones of longevity: the children of many Stanford students who studied overseas are now Stanford students themselves, and can avail themselves of that same basic opportunity and privilege.

My time in Berlin in the 70s not only turned me around academically, it strengthened me intellectually, via the vibrant excitement of seeing every casual moment become a learning experience of some kind, whether riding the subway, buying stamps, even taking a bath. For all of us in the Stanford-in-Berlin group, intellectual vitality erupted in countless circumstances of our daily life, and the lessons simply could not be ignored.

I’ll pick just one particularly illustrative moment. Two nights after we all had arrived in the city to start the quarter, the program organized a big outing into East Berlin, to the Berliner Ensemble theater, where we took in a performance of Bertolt Brecht’s play, Coriolan. We were all phenomenally jet-lagged, but were unfortunately seated in the front row. I, with my paltry German at the time, could understand almost nothing. One of my fellow students even fell asleep (yes, right there in front), and one of the actors, in mid-performance and serving as a quintessential example that I’d cite later in a paper on Brecht’s famous Verfremdungseffekt (“alienation effect”), leaned over from the stage, peered at her, and said loudly, “Da kiekste, wa?” (untranslatable, but essentially a piece of Berlin dialect somewhat equivalent to “peekaboo!”).

Berlin provided me with regular outcroppings of just such “peekaboo” moments: times when my core assumptions were challenged, times when I was taken out of my comfort zone, times when my perspective suddenly shifted and broadened. Today, I believe that my character and temperament, in work and in life, have been distinctly shaped by these experiences: I take crisis better in stride, adopt a philosophy of constant learning, and know never to fall asleep in the front row of a theater. Brecht would be extraordinarily pleased at this outcome.

But it gets even better: my overseas experience now has grown to include the delight and satisfaction of seeing my child participate as well: seeing her changed too, profoundly, by living in and adapting to another set of cultural norms and patterns. In my excitement just before Anneka left for Paris, I even fell into the cliché of buying her a copy of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, since that phrase has always been my go-to way of summarizing what my stay in Berlin meant to me.

There has been less time to see the long-term effects, but Anneka’s life too was greatly affected by her time in Paris. As she tells it: just like my Dad in Berlin, when I arrived in Paris after what had seemed like a tumultuous first two years of campus life, I felt thrown into a different world, pushed out of the Stanford bubble. A place that didn’t eat peanut butter? I was doomed for sure. Little by little, though, daily experiences slowly built my confidence: I didn’t have peanut butter, but I discovered fresh financiers pistaches. I honed my ability to navigate the métro on my own, even at night, and explored the city every spare moment I got. I spent time under the Eiffel Tower chatting with French students and sharing their beer of choice: 1664 (seize-soixante-quatre). I learned how to eat a baguette sandwich alone in a park with no smartphone or newspaper to hide behind: counter to American norms mais très Parisien. Paris gave me constant small victories, but it equally imbued me with humility: I spent an embarrassingly large amount of time poring over the seemingly-simple French text of Tintin et les Picaros for a class on the famous Belgian comic books. And even though I found myself forever unable to understand the thick North African accent of an oft-visited street vendor, by the time I left after two quarters of study, I felt that in small and large ways, I had learned what it was to live as a Parisian. Ultimately, learning to live as a Parisian crystallized for me exactly how I want to live as an American. And yes, it may indeed now be a cliché, but all of us in the program came to feel viscerally the truth of Hemingway’s words: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

So there you have it: father; daughter. Berlin; Paris. The 70s; the present decade. Moveable feasts. The Bing Overseas Studies Program at Stanford continues to touch the lives of its participants, now spanning generations, pulling each of us out of our comfort zones and molding us for years to come.

Oxford Revisited

Alums of BOSP know that thousands of lives have been changed by time spent studying abroad with Stanford. No one knows that better than David Frazer Lewis (’06, AB Urban Studies, AB History—now a third-year doctoral student in the History of Art at St. John’s College, Oxford University). Here he relates how his life changed direction through his time at Stanford’s Thomas and Janet Montag Centre for Overseas Studies in Oxford.

Seven years ago, as a junior at Stanford, I spent a year abroad in Oxford, England. That year changed my life. I was invigorated by the intellectual experience and delighted by the amazing people that I met. This past year, I did it all again. Now a doctoral student at Oxford University, I returned to Stanford House [where the Center in Oxford is located. Ed.] in the role of Junior Dean.

Oxford is the only study-abroad program in which Stanford students regularly return to a host university as graduate students. At any given time, there is a small but lively group of Stanford alumni studying at Oxford. My junior year at Stanford-in-Oxford had helped me to find my passion for historic architecture, and I knew that, if chance allowed, I would one day love to return there for graduate study. However, I did not head back to Oxford as soon as I graduated from Stanford. First, I did a master’s in Architectural History at Cambridge (the Berkeley of England), then I returned to the Bay Area to work for an architecture firm that specialized in historic preservation. When I decided to continue to my doctorate, I looked at programs in the States, but knew that I really wanted to return to England. Like many Stanford-in-Oxford students, I had left England with a number of academic contacts—tutors who could later write references or supervise graduate study.

Thus I returned to Oxford. Dr. Geoffrey Tyack, the Director of the Stanford program, had long been a mentor to me and became one of my doctoral supervisors. I would stop by his office at Stanford House occasionally to discuss my work.


Dr. Geoffrey Tyack in concentrated conversation with students. Photographed by Stanford News Service.

One day, sitting in the squashy old armchair that he reserves for visitors and looking out the window towards the trees of Christ Church Meadow, I heard him mention that he was looking for a Junior Dean for the following year. He warned that it would mean moving out of college accommodation for a year and would take a lot of time that I could otherwise be committing to my dissertation. However, I knew that I wanted to give something back to the program because Stanford House had been such an important part of my own life. I said I would do it.

Oxford is a city of mysteries, with its gothic cloisters shrouded in mist and secret gardens hidden behind tall stone walls, and Stanford House is as enigmatic as any space in Oxford. I suppose I was hired not only because I knew what it was like to be a Stanford student in Oxford, but also because my previous experience meant that I could find my way around the labyrinthine house—which supposedly has more staircases than students. I have to admit that at first the brief made me a little bit anxious. I had to deal with midnight lock-outs and sudden illnesses, flooded bathrooms and blown fuses. The more enjoyable side of the job was helping to lead cultural events—British food tastings, trips to see the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford, and kite-flying expeditions to the Vale of White Horse.

Luckily for me, I was only the sidekick to an amazingly adroit program staff: From his cave-like office under the stairs, Teo fought the chaos of the ancient house by fixing banging boilers and faulty frying pans. At the front desk, Becca was an encyclopedia of Oxford knowledge, connected instantly via social media to students past and present. With the sound of classical cantatas and reams of paperwork pouring forth from her office, Stephanie spun a complex web of planning that made the program run like clockwork. And surrounded by woodcuts and engravings (including a small Hogarth that was the gift of this year’s fall-term students), the program director, Dr. Tyack, made sure that Oxford’s academic and cultural wonders unfolded for every single student. All of the staff, no matter how busy, always had time to welcome a student for a cup of tea and a chat. Over the disorder of a creaky house filled with students they created a sense of peace. You may think Oxford life is best represented in literature by Brideshead Revisited or Gaudy Night, but with the level of magic that seemed to prevail in the Oxford program, I would say that it is best represented by Harry Potter. It seemed that I would survive the year after all.

As part of the job, I got to meet and hang out with over one hundred Stanford undergraduates. Stanford House was always welcoming when the Oxford outside was feeling both literally and metaphorically icy. I was amazed (as I had been when I was at Stanford myself) by the students’ wide range of backgrounds and personalities. Every one of them reacted to Oxford differently, though they all shared a general trajectory of acclimatization: They arrive wide-eyed at the welcome feast in one of the colleges’ great halls, thinking that chips meant crisps and amazed that the dining halls served sherry and duck. They left thinking they had as canny an understanding of English life as Dr. Johnson. They had 45-odd fellow Stanford students with whom to share this transformation. I had made some of my best Stanford friends as a junior studying abroad, and the same was true for many of the students this year. Oxford draws together a group of students with common interests, who in many cases would never have met on campus in California.


A Stanford House Thanksgiving.

The spirit of the program was best summed up by the annual Thanksgiving dinner. Every year, funded by the generosity of the Bings, the Stanford-in-Oxford students plan and prepare an enormous potluck buffet. Karo syrup is ordered from American food importers and a shopping trip often buys up the grocery store’s entire stock of “American Sweetcorn, Product of Morocco.” Every American in Oxford seems to be at the grocery store, demanding exotic items like piecrust and canned pumpkin from the bewildered English staff. Meanwhile, back at Stanford House, all five kitchens are filled with noise and steam until, slowly, dishes begin to appear from the whole range of world cuisines. Students are encouraged to cook dishes that remind them of home, and the buffet table is laden with everything from sweet potatoes crusted with brown sugar to grass jelly and egg rolls.

Before this article starts to sound too much like a paean of praise, I have to admit that there were times when I hated my job. Crawling out on the roof to get merry-making students down at 3 a.m. or using buckets to bail out a bathroom flooded with hot water that was gradually leaking through the ceiling of the café below are not my idea of a good time. However, those moments were rare and I was prepared for them. On balance, the whole experience was as fantastic as it sounds.

Many of the students felt the same way, and said so when we parted ways at the end of term. Oxford, they said, had been one of the greatest experiences of their time at Stanford so far. It had changed their lives and their academic paths. One evening, while walking back from Ahmed’s kebab van, a late-night institution that has provided midnight snacks to many essay-writing Stanford students over the years, a group of us began spontaneously singing the Stanford alma mater. Then we tried to add some verses about Oxford: The Stanford we were hailing was not limited to the foothills and the Bay; it was a truly global university.

BOSP Photo Contest 2012

BOSP’s annual photo contest brings in many submissions from students who present their work. We’re pleased to share three from the 2012 submissions that expressively capture the essence of the Bing Overseas Studies experience.

Britain VII Reunites
at Harlaxton Manor—and Cliveden!

Margaret Earl Cooper (’71, English) and Hal Mickelson (’71, History) were students in Britain VII, the only two-quarter group in BOSP’s history to have changed venues for its second quarter. Here they tell us about a recent reunion that included visits to both.

April is the time of year for pilgrimages, at least in England, and so it was that 26 of us—members of Stanford in Britain VII and our families—trekked to the altars of our youth this past spring. Our group, who as students had split the winter and spring terms of 1969 between Harlaxton Manor in Lincolnshire, and Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire, began our reunion odyssey in London on an inauspiciously wet and cold late April day. From there our first stop was at Cliveden, where we enjoyed, in better weather, a banquet fit for the prior owners, Mr and Mrs. Waldorf Astor, at what is now a 5-star hotel. Thence we traveled to Harlaxton in the Midlands, a baronial mid-19th-century house which is still an overseas campus, albeit now owned and operated by the University of Evansville in Indiana.

Along the way we were reunited with our former tutors, Sir Oliver Thorold, a retired Queen’s Counsel, and Robert Thorne, a London-based architectural historian. The two cheerfully returned to their roles as instructors, providing us with a day of touring in Lincolnshire, first to the Yew Tree Avenue and limestone parish church at Clipsham, and then to Burghley House near the medieval town of Stamford. At the end of the day Oliver and his wife Genevra graciously hosted a champagne reception for us at their ancestral home, Syston Old House.

After three days in the Midlands and a final banquet in the Great Hall at Harlaxton (followed by a show of slides from 1969 and a singing of the Stanford Hymn) the group split up, with many going on to visit the current Stanford campus in Oxford. There we were generously hosted for lunch by Geoffrey Tyack, the Centre’s director, and his wife Penny, and had the pleasure of meeting a number of current Stanford students. In the afternoon we enjoyed a tour of New College and other Oxford landmarks led by David Lewis, Stanford ‘06, the Junior Dean at Stanford in Oxford and a current PhD candidate In the History of Art at St. John’s College, Oxford [see article, Oxford Revisited, above].

Although the weather wasn’t perfect—Chaucer’s “shoures soote” were with us for much of the trip—we found the drafty palaces of our youth better heated than they were 43 years ago. Not to mention that the warmth of our enduring friendships and new ones made along the way made this a trip that few will forget any time soon!

We extend thanks to the following for their help in making the trip a success: Lili Pratt King ‘71 and Cynthia Weber Haines ‘71, Bob Hamrdla of BOSP, Sir Oliver and Lady Genevra Thorold, Robert Thorne, Simon Hawkes and Cynthia Marke (Harlaxton House), Robert Roy of Journeys of Discovery (formerly Siemer & Hand Travel), Justin and Meirion Jones of The Company Group, Inc.

Stanford in Florence Honors Anna Stefàno Nicoletti

Several BOSP programs have celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, and now faithful and loyal long-term employees, well known to generations of students and faculty, are retiring. Fosca S. D’Acierno and Fiorenza Quercioli, members of the staff in Florence, tell us of one such person who has been at the heart of Stanford in Florence for almost 40 years.

Germany VI Presents Gift to BOSP

Eugene B. Davis (’61, ’63 MS, ’66 PhD) recently visited BOSP’s office on campus and presented a check and letter to Bob Hamrdla, ’59. The letter reads: “Group VI of Stanford in Germany had a very successful 50th reunion last fall…our attendance was better than we anticipated, so we ended up with a modest surplus of funds. The organizing committee for the reunion has decided to donate these funds to the Bing Overseas Studies Program in your honor since you were a major part of our experience in Germany.” Bob was Assistant to the Directors of Stanford in Germany for the group January-June, 1961.

Want to Show Your Support of BOSP?

We welcome your support! Gifts from students, alumni, families and friends help to maintain and enhance this unique and amazing program. If you are interested in making a gift or have questions about giving to BOSP, please contact Janet Levy, Development Liaison for the Bing Overseas Studies Program, at [email protected] or (650) 723-9056. You may also make your gift directly by going online to http://giving.stanford.edu/giving/home?indexredir=r Thank you!

Questions about the
Bing Overseas Studies Program?

See our website http://bosp.stanford.edu or contact:

For alumni and friends of Overseas Studies:
Irene Kennedy,
Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director
650-723-0743; [email protected]

For students: Lee Dukes, Advising and Student Relations Coordinator
650-725-0235; [email protected]

Editor, Abroad: Bob Hamrdla ‘59
650-721-6511; [email protected]

Design: Chris Catlin 650-949-3336
www.Visible-Results.com

Past issues of Abroad are available at
http://bosp.stanford.edu/abroad/past_issues.html