Leading a Program Abroad

Submitting a Proposal

A complete faculty-led program proposal consists of four essential components: program approval form (with all required signatures), itinerary, syllabus and budget. The development process outlines the process for creating these items. If you are unclear on any of these items, please contact our office (414-229-4846, overseas@uwm.edu).

Required Proposal Materials

1. Program approval form (Downloadable PDF) – signed by all necessary parties
2. Detailed itinerary (Word)
3. Course syllabus (tentative is acceptable)
4. Program budget (Excel Template) and/or vendor quotes
   • Use the template to estimate expenses. CIE will compile the final budget based on the financial information submitted.

Please note that if your program is a repeat submission from a previous year you will still need to update your itinerary to reflect new dates, as well as modify your budget to reflect changes in costs or currency fluctuations. You will also need to have your approval form signed for every iteration of your program – consider requesting multi-year approval from your Department Chair and Dean.

Optional Materials

• Digital photos, links to videos/articles/blogs for use in advertising
• Additional descriptive text for inclusion on your program’s website

Proposal Review and Approval

A faculty-led program is a collaborative effort not only between the program leader and CIE, but also between the leader and his or her academic department. Like all curricula at UWM, faculty-led programs should be viewed as offerings of both academic departments and individual professors. Early in the process, the leader should find out if the faculty in his or her department are supportive of the program and willing to promote it as part of departmental offerings.

Once your proposal is in final form, it should be submitted for review within your department or school. In each case, however, it should culminate with your proposal receiving approval and signature from your Department Chair and Dean. Ideally they will be informed well in advance and this stage is merely the formalization of a prior understanding.

Review and approval procedures for faculty-led study abroad programs differ by school and college at UWM. It is your responsibility to understand and comply with your school’s/college’s procedures.

Pre-Departure Orientation

UW System policy guidelines require that all program leaders and assistants leading study abroad programs attend a pre-departure orientation. CIE convenes orientation sessions twice per year, on the study day prior to the exam periods in December and May. First-time program leaders are required to attend this orientation. In order to ensure that program leaders are aware of best practices and policy changes and are well-prepared to respond to emergencies, the University requires completion of the orientation once every two years. For those unable to attend the regularly scheduled orientation session, a make-up session can be arranged with the CIE Study Abroad office.

Orientation Topics

• UW-System policies
• Program leader, assistant and CIE responsibilities
• Emergency response and crisis management
• Safety and risk mitigation
• Legal affairs
• Health concerns and student behavioral issues
• Student (and faculty) conduct
• Financial policies and money management

After Leading a Program

Financial Reconciliation

After the conclusion of your program, you will need to submit your receipts for any program expenses paid for with funds from your cash advance. You may either bring your receipts to the Study Abroad Financial Specialist in person, send them electronically (as email attachments or in a OneDrive/Dropbox/Google Drive file), or add them to the “My Wallet” section of your UW TravelWise portal.

CIE cannot guarantee successful submission of your electronic TER if you do not submit receipts within two weeks after the end date of your program. In the event that you are not returning to Milwaukee immediately after the completion of your program (the 30-day window begins the day your program ends, not when you return to the US), you will need to send digital copies of your receipts or arrange to have them submitted either by someone else or by mail/courier.

If you do send your receipts by mail please use a reliable courier service, like FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc. You are advised to make copies for yourself should the originals get lost in the mail:

Center for International Education
Study Abroad Office
C/o Financial Specialist
2441 East Hartford Avenue
Garland Hall 138
Milwaukee, WI 53211

The program receipts will be used to finalize the budget for your program, and you will be contacted to submit the electronic TER (and bring in a check made payable to UWM if the entirety of the travel advance is not accounted for) once it is completed.

Course Completion

Grades are to be submitted electronically or sent to CIE’s Study Abroad Coordinators to post to PAWS. Once the Coordinator receives the grades they will then work with the Study Abroad Enrollment Specialist to post the grades on the students’ PAWS accounts.

Once the grades have been posted by Enrollment Specialist, the students will receive a message stating their grades have been posted to PAWS.

Program Debriefing

At the end of your program, students will be emailed a survey about their individual experiences while on the program. The survey focuses on the overall program and services of CIE as a whole, this is not an evaluation of the course or instructor.

Your Study Abroad Coordinator will contact you to schedule a debrief meeting to discuss the challenges and successes of the program and if applicable talk about future programming and what could be done to improve the program.