Officials hope more students will study abroad after the Kentucky Institute for International Studies moves to Western.
KIIS will move from Murray State University to Western on July 1, Director Chris Bierwirth said.
KIIS is a group of 21 colleges, mostly in Kentucky, that provides study abroad programs for students from those colleges, he said.
The office has been at Murray since its beginning about 30 years ago, Bierwirth said.
Once the office moves, students studying abroad through KIIS will receive credit from Western, he said.
The students won’t pay tuition, but Western gets $100 per student to offset its administrative costs in granting credit, said Cornell Menking, Western’s chief international officer.
KIIS has always operated without a contract with Murray, Bierwirth said. Students received credit from their study abroad through Murray, but there were no specific arrangements.
He said he and the KIIS board of directors talked with Murray administrators for about a year to define the organization’s relationship with the university.
KIIS officials opened up the discussion with all the member schools when they couldn’t reach an agreement that both were happy with, Bierwirth said.
Murray, the University of Kentucky, Morehead State University, Northern Kentucky University and Western all submitted proposals to sponsor KIIS, he said.
The KIIS board of directors decided to accept Western’s proposal about two weeks ago, Bierwirth said.
“Western’s established a reputation and commitment to international education,” he said.
Spanish Professor Melissa Stewart has directed several study abroad programs through KIIS and has served on its board of directors for about 10 years.
She said she thinks more Western students will choose to study abroad through KIIS now that the office will be at Western.
Some students don’t know about KIIS and word of mouth on campus will help increase participants, Stewart said.
“The more you hear and see about an opportunity to study abroad, the more people that will study abroad,” she said.
Bierwirth said Murray has seen benefits from sponsoring KIIS.
Murray students represent about 15 percent of the students studying abroad through KIIS, he said. Murray’s student body represents only 5 percent of the student population of all the KIIS member colleges.
Menking said the move will also help Western’s reputation.
“WKU’s name is going to be on every transcript,” he said.
President Gary Ransdell said having the organization at Western will give students immediate access to study abroad opportunities.
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