Honors-PLUS Students Take Off
for European Business Tour

After a summer filled with classes on European culture and business, 19 of the University of Cincinnati's top business school students headed overseas on Aug. 9 to learn about the global economy firsthand. They will visit Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.

The Carl H. Lindner Honors-PLUS Scholars - all juniors - boarded two flights at the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky International Airport to begin a four-week trip that will be taking them to more than nine corporations, a corporate museum, cultural sites, NATO and the European Union Commission and Parliament. A Finnish sauna and two meals with major corporate executives are also among the highlights of their planned excursion through Tampere and Helsinki (Finland), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Louvain-La-Neuve and Brussels (Belgium), and Paris (France).

The global experience offered by the Honors-PLUS program is one of the reasons Beth Kramer, a 1998 Oak Hills High School graduate (above right), said she opted to attend UC's College of Business Administration instead of going to her other college choice, Miami University. Kramer made her remarks while waiting at the gate for her flight to leave. Her boyfriend, Jason Cornelius, her best friend, Michelle Harvey, a UC alumnus, and Michelle's mother, all came along to bid her "bon voyage."

"Co-oping is the most important and beneficial" aspect of the Honors-PLUS program in UC's business school, Kramer said. "But after that, I think that the global experience really sets it apart." The program also includes full tuition scholarships for each participant, Leadership Cincinnati training and many opportunities to meet with executives. The idea is to groom the Tristate's best and brightest students and put them to work for local companies.

For Kramer, the European Honors-PLUS tour represents her first chance to venture outside the United States. In addition to being the first chance to travel abroad for Honors-PLUS scholar Christine Williams, the trip offered Williams, far left, her first opportunity to fly. The 1998 Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School graduate from Columbus, Ohio, came well prepared for the long flight, stocked with snacks. Both her parents drove her to the airport to bid her farewell.

Williams and her classmates also got a lesson in flight delays as the Delta flight she and several of her classmates were departing on, scheduled to leave at 4:10 p.m., didn't take off until 5:25 p.m. The other group of the students left on a flight that took off at 6:18 p.m. It had been scheduled to depart at 6 p.m.

Gabe Grimaldi and John Walker were among the traveling scholars who have prior European travel experience. They and several other Honors-PLUS juniors had participated in another CBA travel abroad program, studying for three months in Linz, Austria, in fall 2000. "We (already) know that Cincinnati is not the place for public transportation, and we had to learn pretty quick about getting on trains, getting off, getting on again, getting off," Walker said.

Grimaldi spent the morning doing five loads of laundry so she could finish packing. She set her alarm for 8 a.m. after staying at a party until 2 a.m. the night before. "I'm really excited about going back to Paris," Grimaldi said while sipping on a MacDonald's soft drink. She had also traveled to Paris in spring 2000.

Even Norm Baker, director of the Honors-PLUS program and UC provost emeritus, was looking forward to the trip, despite many years of travel experience. Although his prior trips have included Japan, Thailand, China, Germany, Hungary and North Africa, he has not traveled to Paris or Finland.

The UC trip is receiving funding from a federal grant, UC's Institute for Global Studies and Affairs, and Honors-PLUS. Students were required to pay a little over $630 toward airfare, plus food expenses. In addition to the classes they have already attended to prepare for the trip, they will attend lectures in Europe. Each must write a paper chronicling the trip, what they learned from it and how it relates to future career plans. They will receive six hours of credit.