To succeed, a university must act globally and interact where knowledge is being explored. Today that means everywhere in the world. The University of Cincinnati is projecting itself worldwide and participating in the global community. Our connections are formal, personal, and electronic.

Students from more than 80 countries are enrolled at UC, and the number of such students has doubled during the past decade. UC has formal agreements with nearly 100 institutions outside the United States. Our faculty are involved in more than 105 countries, from archaeologists in Turkey, to biologists in Romania, to planners in Indonesia, to engineers in Switzerland. The university is truly an international enterprise.

Consequently, we have strengthened the language and culture requirements for the bachelorís degree, set goals for student study abroad, and expanded traditional programs - such as co-op - into international programs.

Over the years, the University of Cincinnati has signed sister university agreements with 49 institutions around the world. The latest such agreement was made in November 1997 with the University of Gadjah Mada, Indonesia's oldest and largest institution. The agreement calls for sharing faculty and collaborating on city planning projects among UC, Gadjah Mada and Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, another of UC's sister institutions.

Under the auspices of the university's Global Initiative, the University of Cincinnati is sending students abroad as interns in a unique way. Unlike traditional study quarters, the UC program matches students with overseas projects in need of expertise. The goal is to build cultural bridges, to make a real difference in foreign communities, and to benefit the students' resumes.

More than 40 students from the top business school in France spend spring quarter studying at the University of Cincinnati College of Business Administration. The contingent, in its fifth year, doubles the size of any previous international business class.

The University of Cincinnati College of Education has launched the Center for International Education and Research. The center provides a forum in which educators from outside the United States can study U.S. teaching methods and Cincinnati scholars can study education programs around the world.

The University of Cincinnati has opened the Max Kade German Cultural Center to provide a multimedia learning and social environment for students interested in the study of German language, culture, and business. The center is operated by the Germanic Languages and Literatures Department of UC's McMicken College of Arts & Sciences.

Guided by daily Internet access to architects and planners, 20 University of Cincinnati students worked around the clock in September 1996 to develop a regional plan for peaceful coexistence in Bosnian Sarajevo. Supported by UC's Globalization Initiative, the participating students were from UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

University of Cincinnati engineers have established a national test site for researchers looking for better ways to monitor the health of the nation's highways. Working with other universities, federal laboratories, the military, and collaborators as far afield as London and Switzerland, researchers from the UC College of Engineering are gathering and sharing data on aging highway structures.

Thomas F. Zuck, director of the University of Cincinnati Hoxworth Blood Center, was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Scotland. For more than 300 years, the prestigious organization has advised governments on health issues and medical education.

University of Cincinnati biologist Rebecca German is in Australia this year for a major study on the evolution of sex differences in marsupial animals. Her work is supported by a Fulbright Scholar Award.

Two dozen University of Cincinnati freshmen toured several Italian cities before attending their first classes. The program may be the only such effort aimed at incoming students, according to the UC School of Planning, and is designed to foster international awareness as an integral part of the university experience. The students are enrolled in UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

Our College-Conservatory of Music opera students perform every summer in Lucca, Italy, at the opera house made famous by Puccini.

The globalization of education is a reality at the University of Cincinnati.