Study Abroad Programs Sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM)

Please note: Only students registered in the undergraduate College of the University of Chicago may apply to ACM-sponsored programs through Chicago. Students at other ACM colleges should apply through their home institution. Students at non-ACM colleges should contact the Chicago office of the ACM (Phone: 312-263-5000; e-mail: acm@acm.edu) to inquire about making an application.

Botswana (Gaborone)  Tanzania-Autumn (Dar es Salaam)  

General Description:

The College of the University of Chicago works with the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), to sponsor programs in Tanzania and Botswana. These programs, listed above and described below, are available, by application, to Chicago students and are considered officially to be Chicago-sponsored programs in terms of credit transfer, registration, billing, and financial aid.

Credits:

As a participant in an ACM program you receive full credit for your work abroad. This credit appears as course titles, units of credit, and grades on your Chicago transcript.

Registration and Tuition:

You remain registered as a full-time University of Chicago student during the period of your participation in an ACM foreign study program. If you take part in a full-year program you pay regular Chicago tuition. If you take part in a single-term program, the charges are more complicated. Since ACM single-term programs are conceived as semester or half-year programs (most of the schools in this consortium are on a semester calendar), ACM bills its member schools a half-year's tuition for each participating student from that school. Consequently Chicago will bill such a student a half-year's tuition for the quarter of participation. Were you to participate in the autumn-term Tanzania Program, for example, you would be registered for this program in the autumn quarter only, but would be billed a half-year's tuition during that quarter. (For the winter and spring terms, when you are back on campus, you would, as usual, pay one-third of the year's tuition per term.) You would also pay a program fee (for room and board and related expenses) plus Chicago's study abroad administrative fee, assessed to all students participating in a Chicago foreign study program. (For precise figures, please see Study Abroad Program Fees.)

Financial Aid:

You retain your financial aid eligibility as a participant in an ACM program abroad. However, two expenses, the study abroad administrative fee and the round-trip air fare to the program site, are not underwritten by College Financial Aid. Also financial aid cannot meet the extra tuition required of single-term programs except by an increase in recommended loan. On the other hand, since you cannot be expected to work part-time while abroad, the self-help component of your financial aid package would not include a term-time employment factor.

Eligibility:

You may apply to an ACM program if you are registered in good standing at Chicago. Apart from the specific eligibility requirements for individual ACM programs, you are asked to present cogent academic reasons for studying abroad, as well as a solid academic record. In general these programs are open to second-, third-, and fourth-year students.

Application:

Applications are available on the study abroad website. To apply to this program, a student submits a general study abroad application electronically, then downloads the supplementary application specific to this program and submits it on paper, normally in mid-winter quarter of the previous academic year.

Your application is then reviewed by a Chicago committee, which decides whether it should be forwarded to ACM. Assuming that it is forwarded, the final admission decision is made by ACM. (To begin the application process, click on the Study Abroad General Application.)

Further Information:

If you want to discuss an ACM program and the possibility of your participating in it, you are invited to contact Lewis Fortner, Senior Study Abroad Advisor (Harper 213; 702-4858; fortner@uchicago.edu.)

Descriptions:

Listed below is a brief description of the two ACM-sponsored study abroad programs available to students in the College. Visit the ACM website for further information: www.acm.edu. Syllabi for ACM courses are available by calling ACM at 312/263-5000.

Botswana (Gaborone): 

"Culture and Society in Africa," runs from early January to mid-May. It is successor to ACM's spring-term "Nation Building and Development" Program in Tanzania and, like that earlier program, offers students an opportunity to study and observe a relatively new African nation standing on the shoulders of a much older culture. Various academic exercises, such as classroom work, language study (Setswana), field trips, and independent studyare combined with on-the-ground observations and interactions to create an intense and valuable learning environment. The program is headquartered at the University of Botswana, a modern and well-equipped institution. Students have the opportunity of living with a local family or in a graduate residence hall at the University. Because this is a spring-semester program, bridging both winter and spring quarters, you will not return to Chicago for spring quarter. You will be registered for winter quarter only and pay tuition equivalent to one-half of Chicago’s annual tuition.

Tanzania-Autumn (Dar es Salaam): This long autumn-semester program (late July to early December) is entitled “Studies in Human Evolution and Ecology.” As a participant you take three courses--Human Evolution, Ecology of the Serengeti, and Swahili—at the University of Dar es Salaam and develop, as a fourth course, a field project with a faculty advisor. While the headquarters for this program is the University of Dar es Salaam, you will devote a significant amount of time to field research conducted in Tanzania’s national parks and research sites (depending upon your project these may include the Olduvai Gorge, Laetoli, the Serengeti Plain, and the Ngorongoro Crater). Program housing ranges from university residence halls in the initial portion of the program, tents in the field portion, and private homes or university guest houses in the final four weeks. While there is no absolute language or course requirement for this program, you are encouraged to take preparatory courses in Swahili as well as paleoanthropology, ecology, geology, and so forth. Because this is an autumn- semester program, you are registered in autumn quarter and pay tuition equivalent to one-half of Chicago’s annual tuition.

Statements contained on this site are subject to change without notice.