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| Vol. 17, No. 33 | May 28, 1998 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 33 | May 28, 1998 |
Students from the 1936-37 Junior Year in Paris
include (from left) Ada Ennon, Hannah Thomas and Mary McGirk.
By Andrew Trowbridge Hill Delaware '96, '97M
Several years ago, Alex Trebek, host of the popular TV game show Jeopardy, read this answer, "The American university that originated study abroad for undergraduates."
The correct question in the game was, "What is the University of Delaware?"
This year, UD celebrates the 75th anniversary of the nation's first study-abroad program.
Created in 1923 by Raymond Watson Kirkbride, an assistant professor in the-then Department of Modern Languages, the Delaware Foreign Study Plan later became known as the Junior Year Abroad. Its success ultimately inspired other American colleges and universities to send undergraduate students abroad, with more than 89,000 students nationally receiving academic credit in overseas programs during 1995-96.
Most of Delaware's first study-abroad program was based on Kirkbride's personal experiences overseas. A veteran of World War I, he was one of 400 men chosen to study in the Army School Detachment at Grenoble, France. This special U.S. Army program was designed for college-educated American soldiers still in Europe following the signing of the Armistice. His experiences there provided much of his inspiration for the Delaware plan. Kirkbride and his fellow soldier-students studied French and geography, and Kirkbride came to appreciate the value of intense language immersion as the most effective way to master a foreign language. This appreciation would become a defining rationale for study abroad.
At the age of 27, Kirkbride had been on the faculty of the University of Delaware for a little over a year when he approached then University President Walter Hullihen with his plan to send undergraduates (accompanied by a Delaware faculty member) overseas for a year to study French language and culture in French universities. Hullihen, himself, had studied abroad as a graduate student in Leipzig, Munich and Rome, and he encouraged Kirkbride to develop the idea further with the help of the University administration.
Kirkbride's discussion with Hullihen was well-timed. Some 50 years before, the Rev. Birdsay Grant Northrop and many prominent American university presidents wrote a 22-point collective argument against sending American students abroad, citing possible moral temptations and the high costs of foreign study. But, by 1921, the U.S. had emerged from the war as a prominent leader in world affairs, despite the isolationist efforts of various segments of the population. American businesses and government agencies in the early 1920s had a growing need for American college graduates with international experience. Few men and women graduating from institutions of higher education in the U.S. had such knowledge.
After more than a year of investigation and refinement of the Foreign Study Plan, the UD Board of Trustees moved at the 1922 spring meeting to make the plan an integral part of the University curriculum, with the first students traveling to France in the 1923-24 academic year. Kirkbride and Hullihen solicited and received the support of many prominent Americans, including then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, the President of U.S. Steel Corp. James Farrell and Delaware businessman Pierre du Pont. As one of the most prominent supporters of the University during the interwar years, du Pont would become the largest benefactor of Delaware's Foreign Study Plan, donating more than $50,000 over 20 years to support the program's operations budget and offering numerous scholarships to students who otherwise would have been unable to afford the program.
The first study abroad group was composed of eight undergraduates- Francis Cummings, David Dougherty, T. Russell Turner, J. Winston Walker, Herbert Lank, William Mendenhall, J. Cedric Snyder and Austin Cooley (an undergraduate from Westminster College). On July 7, 1923, following a farewell dinner in Newark and a rail journey to New York City, the first Delaware group departed for France aboard the Rochambeau, a steamer of the French Line. Nine days later, they arrived at Le Havre and traveled by train to Paris. Following a short introduction to the French capital, the students began intensive French language study during the summer session at the University of Nancy. In addition to three hours of class in French language, history, literature and geography every day, each student was given a one-hour private language lesson intended to better develop conversation and pronunciation.
During the summer session, the students were taken on three different car journeys throughout France, including a 75-mile journey to Lake Larnais in the Vosges Mountains and to a number of World War I battlefields including St. Mihiel, Verdun and the American Cemetery at Thiacourt.
The Delaware students shifted headquarters to Paris in September, where the young men were enrolled in a two-month intensive language program at the Alliance Francaise. The students reported that the work at the Alliance Francaise was much more challenging than that at the University of Nancy, requiring students to attend Saturday classes.
By November, most of the students began work at the Sorbonne, where they were enrolled in the Cours de Civilisation, a group of classes created especially for foreign students studying in France. All the students continued language study at the Institut du Pantheon. Throughout their time in Paris, the students made a number of short tours around France. At Christmas break, the students were treated to a tour of Belgium, the Netherlands, western Germany and France.
While in Nancy, the students were assigned homestays with French families and, in Paris, all but three of the students lived in French homes. The others were boarded in a student residence hall. Kirkbride expected the homestays and dormitory experiences to help the Delaware students improve their language skills and learn about the daily aspects of French life.
In addition, the Delaware students were forbidden to speak any English while on the program. Originally, infractions of this rule required that the student be sent home to the United States. In later years, a fine was imposed.
Students from the first Delaware Foreign Study Plan group returned to promising futures, although J. Cedric Snyder died in a car accident shortly after graduation from Delaware in 1925. Francis Cummings, the first visually impaired American study abroad student, became the executive director for the blind in the state. David Dougherty went on to earn his Ph.D. degree from Harvard and later taught at Clark University, ending his career as chairperson of the Department of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon. Herbert Lank began a career with the DuPont Co., which eventually took him to Canada where he became president of DuPont Canada.
In successive years, the program groups grew in size and welcomed many more students from other U.S. schools, including Columbia, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Brown, Smith, Harvard and Princeton universities and the University of Pennsylvania. After becoming ill, Kirkbride returned in 1926 to the U.S. He died in 1929, shortly after being awarded the Legion of Honor by the French ambassador in Washington, D.C.
Given the success of the program in France, Delaware expanded the Foreign Study Plan to Germany in 1932 and to Switzerland in 1938. Suspended during the war years, the program recommenced in 1946. However, after two years of successful post-war programs with no Delaware students participating, then University President William Carlson pushed for the elimination of the program. In 1948, administration of the Junior Year in France was transferred to Sweet Briar College in Virginia.
In 1971, opportunities for Delaware students to study abroad were resumed when then President E.A. Trabant established Winterim during January. Early Winterim destinations included London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. Semester abroad programs were resumed in 1975. Today, the University of Delaware sponsors study abroad programs in more than 25 countries on five continents during the fall and spring semesters, as well as programs during winter and summer sessions.
To preserve the memory of Kirkbride, the University named a building, Kirkbride Lecture Hall, in his honor in 1976. Kirkbride's letters to his family, his honors from the French government and other personal momentos are part of the Raymond Watson Kirkbride Collection, maintained in the University of Delaware Archives. In addition, a group of foreign study records preserved by the late University librarian William D. Lewis and Prof. E.C. Byam were transferred to the archives in 1969. Today, these old letters, photographs and other assorted papers represent one of the best kept archives of an early 20th-century education program.
Brochures on specific programs and more information on current study abroad programs are available by writing the Office of International Programs and Special Sessions, 4 Kent Way, Newark, DE 19716, by calling toll-free at 1-888-UD1-INTL or by e-mail studyabroad @mvs.udel.edu A directory of e-mail addresses for study abroad alumni is being created. To be included, send a note to dianka@udel.edu
The author, a graduate student in the Department of Economics, acknowledges the assistance of Betty Dunn and Jean Brown, University archives; John Clayton, University development; research assistants Mary Beth Gullet '95 and Cynthia Cunningham '96; and Lawrence Donnelley, international programs and special sessions, who provided funding for this research.
Members of the first Foreign Study Group (1923-24) include
(from left) Herbert Lank, Austin Cooley, Francis Cummings, T.
Russell Turner, Prof. Raymond Kirkbride, J. Cedric Snyder,William Mendenhall, John Walker and David Dougherty.
Prof. Raymond Kirkbride
Photos courtesy of University Archives
