Teach Abroad
Leading a group of students abroad is a professionally rewarding experience. Hundreds of University of Minnesota faculty and staff have taught undergraduate and graduate students in an international setting, with students and program leaders alike finding the experience to be a highlight of their academic and professional careers.
The Learning Abroad Center is here to help you develop one of these unique learning opportunities.
Call for Proposals
The submission portal for LAC Seminar proposals for academic year 2026–2027 is now closed. The proposal submission deadline was February 1, 2026 for 2026–2027 programs. Explore the Learning Abroad Center's 2026–2027 LAC Seminar Suite for programs that have been selected and will run this Academic Year.
Review our Teach Abroad web pages, leader resources, and the Leader Portal Canvas site for additional information.
The call for proposals for the 2027-2028 LAC Seminar suite will begin in November 2026,
Proposal Considerations
The Learning Abroad Center is interested in receiving proposals that appeal to today's UMTC student population. We encourage faculty and staff to thoughtfully consider how your own identity and positionality, both as an instructor and as an individual, contributes to your experience teaching undergraduates and your ability to lead diverse student groups. We are particularly interested in learning how your program design promotes inclusivity and supports students from traditionally underrepresented populations.
Faculty and staff should consider how their proposed program can fulfill specific major or minor credits and liberal education requirements for students. Aligning your program with specific academic requirements for students helps to increase student interest and enrollment. We also strongly encourage faculty and staff to consider how their course may appeal to students across departments and colleges by working with the Instructor-led Program Team and other colleagues around campus to approve programs to count toward multiple major or minor requirements.
We encourage you to connect with the Instructor-led Program Team to discuss your program ideas and how they may align with current proposal considerations.
Contact the LAC Instructor-led Program Team at [email protected] with questions about the Proposal & Review process.
Instructor-Led Program Models
Learning Abroad Center Seminar Series
Global Seminar/Create Your Own
- Could your program be designed for and open to students from a variety of academic backgrounds?
- Do you prefer to have the highest level of Learning Abroad Center support with regard to program development, administration, and implementation?
- Would mentoring and feedback from other leaders be useful?
- Global Seminars offer the option to teach your course entirely abroad
- The Create Your Own model offers the option to teach an embedded or entirely abroad course, and additional flexibility to customize your program length, number of credits, and academic focus.
Location
Program locations for LAC Seminar models are finalized in consultation with the Learning Abroad Center. Factors taken into consideration are availability of partners that can provide strong on-site support, appeal to students, relevance to program topic, distance, safety, and cost.
Customized Programs
- Would you like to develop deeper connections with existing Learning Abroad Center programs and take advantage of the on-site staff's knowledge and expertise?
- Do you prefer to have a higher level of support from the Learning Abroad Center with your program's development, administration, and implementation?
- Do you prefer to design a discipline-specific program for a particular population of students?
Global Campus Partner Programs
- Do you prefer to design a discipline-specific program for a particular population of students?
- Does your program have specific academic prerequisites that students must meet?
- Do you have a specific location in mind?
- Do you prefer, and are you able, to assume full ownership of program development, finances, administration, and implementation?
Leader Portal
For more information about instructor-led programs, program development resources, and to connect with other leaders, refer to the Leader Portal Canvas site. If you need to enroll in the Canvas site, follow these steps:
- Visit the UofM Training Hub
- Select the "Course Catalog"button
- Keyword: LAC100 and/or Department offering training: Learning Abroad Center
- Select: Education Abroad Program Leader Resources
- Click green button: +Enroll in Course