Faculty Seminar

In 1989, International Education began a tradition now recognized as a national model for how to engage faculty in the critical work of deepening a university’s relationships abroad and fostering interdisciplinary and international dialogue around shared intellectual pursuits.

Faculty selected for the program represent a cross-section of schools and departments and are encouraged to draw on their seminar experiences to enrich their teaching and research. They also begin important and ongoing relationships with colleagues in countries to which the seminar travels, planting the seeds for deeper engagement from the wider Richmond community.

Recent faculty seminar trips have proven fruitful. In 201 visits to Cuba by UR President Ronald Crutcher and 12 faculty and staff advanced UR’s connections in the country. President Crutcher and two faculty musicians performed a series of concerts in Havana in the autumn of 2017, including the debut of a composition by Cuban composer Daniel Guzmán Loyzaga at the National Library of Cuba. Mr. Guzmán also came to UR as a visiting scholar. Faculty participants on the 2018 trip to South Africa have garnered three major international grants, media inclusion in a number of national news publications, co-teaching opportunities with new colleagues, and healthy return engagement to Johannesburg and Cape Town. And quickly following the 2023 trip to Japan, faculty/staff exchange between both UR and Japanese universities has grown.