Global Partnerships
Each spring, students celebrate International Week with dance performances, a food fair, and a parade of flags and fashions. The annual event helps students experience world cultures on campus, and other programs introduce them to needs around the globe. For example, UNT is the nation’s first university to partner with the Chiapas Project in its fight to eradicate poverty by improving the lives of women and families in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Fostering global understanding and promoting cultural appreciation are central to preparing tomorrow’s successful global leaders. UNT’s strategic international partnerships seek to improve quality of life, facilitate the exchange of ideas and culture, and allow for important research addressing global issues. UNT’s campus also benefits from a rich diversity of international students.
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UNT’s 2,000 international students represent 116 countries around the world.
This fall, the University welcomed many international educators and dignitaries, including Kuwait’s cultural attaché, Tunisia’s ambassador, and university presidents and administrators from Thailand, Taiwan, Mexico and Venezuela, as well as educators from across Europe and a large U.S. Department of State-sponsored delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Visit the UNT International Studies and Programs web site
View photo galleries from International Studies and Programs
UNT-Thai Relations
A longstanding relationship between UNT and Thailand led to two new programs in 2007 that will elevate the quality of education and improve the quality of life in Thailand. UNT was chosen as the American partner to serve as the gateway in helping the 40-university Rajabhat University System achieve its goal of having at least 30 percent of its 20,000 faculty members earn doctoral degrees by 2014. In October, 24 Rajabhat University presidents met with representatives from Texas universities on campus to create program guidelines. In addition, UNT was one of two U.S. universities selected by the Royal Thai Embassy to provide pre-academic training for the prestigious Royal Thai Scholars. There are more than 1,000 UNT alumni in Thailand.
TIPS
Home to the Turkish Institute for Police Studies, UNT is Turkey’s partner in providing master’s and doctoral education for its national police force, which is committed to ensuring a secure world where democracy thrives. Respected across the globe, the institute is an international source of information on global security. Since 1999, it has helped more than 150 Turkish officers earn advanced degrees from U.S. universities. Recep Gultekin, first degree police chief and head of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Turkish National Police, spoke at UNT commencement in August. Five officers, including Selcuk Zengin and TIPS founder and president Sámih Teymur (second and third from left), received their doctorates at the ceremony.
UNT-UAEM Partnership
In December, Oscar Olea-Mejia (left) became the first student from the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México in Toluca to receive a doctor of philosophy degree in materials science and engineering from UNT as part of a cooperative program between the two universities. UNT and UAEM officially began collaborating in 2002, and UAEM opened an office on the UNT campus in 2005 to promote the exchange of students and scholars as well as joint research. A new dual master’s degree program in linguistics is the latest project to come from the partnership. The program provides students at UNT and UAEM with the opportunity to study in each country and earn degrees from both universities.
Examining the World
Educated Americans who personally experience different cultures, languages and traditions are better equipped to succeed in a global economy. Numerous opportunities to study abroad invite UNT students to examine the world while immersed in carefully constructed, discipline-specific, challenging experiences. In 2007, faculty members supplemented the university’s offerings when they launched UNT’s first educational exchange program with a university in India, expanded a master’s program in sociology at Neve Yerushalayim in Israel to include male students and created an E-passport course to Hong Kong that allows students who can’t travel to experience the trip virtually.
View photo galleries from UNT's first study abroad trip to India