University of Michigan

The President’s Donor Challenge: Enriching The Student Global Experience

While new media and technologies have brought the world closer than ever to campus, students need a deeper understanding of international traditions, values and attitudes to succeed personally and professionally.

Here’s how it works:

• Endowment gifts ranging from $25,000 to $500,000 will be matched

• As of December 2009, $4 million in matching funds remained available. The opportunity expires when these matching funds have been exhausted or after December 31, 2010, whichever comes first.

• The Challenge benefits undergraduate and graduate students who want to study abroad through a UM-Ann Arbor or affiliated program.

• The Challenge also supports admitted international students studying at the UM-Ann Arbor.
  

Through President Mary Sue Coleman’s Challenge for the Student Global Experience, donors can:

• Help prepare students to thrive in the dynamic, global environment

• Maximize their gifts for foreign study and learning

• Encourage students from abroad to attend Michigan

“Whether you view the world as getting flatter or smaller, the fact is we are more interconnected than ever,” said Coleman, who made a gift with her husband, Kenneth Coleman, to kick off the Challenge.

“We must find ways to make the international experience more flexible, creative and affordable. Our future and the future of our nation depend on it.”

The Challenge helps fulfill Coleman’s call to double U-M student participation in study abroad programs. More than 1,800 Michigan undergraduates and roughly 670 graduate students already study abroad each year.

It also seeks to create opportunities for international students to study at Michigan, enhancing possibilities for global interaction and understanding on the U-M campus.

• The Challenge offers a $1 match for every $2 in endowment gifts.

• The President’s match aims to leverage donors’ generosity and generate $15 million for global study opportunities, including support for international students admitted to Michigan.

Student Stories

"The experience helped me understand how the core concepts of business are applicable across geographies and industry sectors and how they can be a force for positive social change."
—Abby Hillyard , (MBA ’09), who worked in Cambodia as part of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business’ Multidisciplinary Action Project course

 

"I can't think of one experience in my life that has impacted and changed me for the better as much as studying abroad. It is worth every sacrifice you have to make to get there, even leaving Michigan for a semester."
—Emily Ziering, right, Kinesiology student on her foreign study experience at the University of Barcelona

 

"(Uganda) was an amazing experience and it simply would not have happened without the funding I received. It's been eye-opening to see how the vast majority of the world lives, simple interventions can help so many people."
—Chris LaFond (BS '04, MPH '06), who spent four months in Uganda analyzing HIV treatments as a second-year Masters student at the School of Public Health.