Letter from the Director

Hello, friends of FSU Valencia and of the amazing EWM program.

Wow! This academic year has been “something” at FSU Valencia. We had a record number of students, courses taught, and faculty: more than 700 students. As you may remember, last year marked 20 years of Florida State University having a permanent program in Spain. It made us think and remember how we started with 250 students per year and what growth we have had! In fact, this year we also marked having had 10,000 students pass by our program in Valencia.

Can you imagine all that has happened to the students and faculty in the program during these years? Yes! All that you are thinking and more, we have lived and experienced through the years. Most are good experiences; there are a few sad and bad situations; and of course, there are a lot of shared life moments. The FSU Valencia program has been there for good and bad, and we are proud to speak about how much we have helped and how much we have shared.

Speaking about sharing, we have a couple of stories that we want to tell you about. One of them is related to the beautiful volunteering program that we started almost 10 years ago. Volunteering while in the FSU Valencia program has all of the same good things of any volunteer activity, plus the incredible reward of volunteering/helping with people of a different culture and country. Our students mingle with Spanish society and people during these volunteering activities, and they immerse themselves in a learning environment and experience personal situations that they will remember forever. Maybe more than what was learned in a classroom?

In this program, our FSU students help kids with a hearing impairment learn and practice English language skills. Unfortunately, society puts these kids behind in their learning of a second language due to their hearing problem. But we want to help solve that. Our students immerse themselves in those kids’ families and homes (supervised by FSU Valencia) and in most cases have the experience of their lives and gain a family/friend/brother/sister forever! As you can imagine, the personal stories behind this volunteering are beautiful and offer invaluable growth in learning.

The other story that we want to finish with is about our students K & M who met in the program some years ago and, if things go as planned, will marry in Valencia (maybe even at the FSU study center) in a few months. After that, we will be able to say even louder that we are a family at FSU Valencia!

Ignacio Messana

Valencia Dean and Program Director