Acting Director of UC Santa Barbara Education Abroad Program

April 27, 2010

On June 30, 2010 Professor Michael O'Connell will retire after 6 years of service as the Director of the UC Santa Barbara Education Abroad Program, and 1 year as the Acting Director of the systemwide Education Abroad Program. We want to recognize Professor O'Connell for his many years of service, his investment of time, energy, and passion into Education Abroad, and to thank him for the many rewarding opportunities abroad he has provided to both our students and our faculty as part of their UC Santa Barbara experience. Among his many achievements as Director, Michael is especially proud of having inaugurated the attractive newsletter, The Global Gaucho, and of interacting successfully with donors to the scholarship program that allowed a record number of our students to study abroad. The campus is particularly grateful to Michael for his leadership during the recent debates over the future direction of the systemwide UC Education Abroad Program.

We are pleased to announce that Juan Campo has agreed to serve as Acting Director of the UC Santa Barbara Education Abroad Program, effective July 1, 2010.   Juan is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the History of Religions in the Department of Religious Studies and is an affiliated faculty member of the Global and International Studies Program.  He has nearly twenty years of experience with the Education Abroad Program and international education on campus.  He served as Director for the EAP study center in Egypt (1991-93) and in India (1998-2001), and spent six years on the Senate's Committee on International Education (formerly CEAP and CELIP), in addition to three years on the systemwide Committee on International Education. Professor Campo also chaired the 1997-98 programmatic review of the campus EAP office and served on two ad hoc committees for international education at UC Santa Barbara.

Please join us in thanking Michael O'Connell and in welcoming Juan Campo.