Michelle H. Martin, Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services, Information School, recounts leading study abroad programs at the UW over the past decade.
Michelle H. Martin has a long history with study abroad. She first studied abroad at Exeter University in the United Kingdom for her entire junior year when she was an English major at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. When she taught at Clemson University in South Carolina, she led a study abroad program in Belgium for about eight weeks. Ever since joining the University of Washington in 2016, she has been creating global learning opportunities for students by leading study abroad programs with a focus on children’s and young adult literature, youth services, and librarianship in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
In 2017, Martin and J. Elizabeth Mills (now an iSchool doctoral alum) led a group of Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) students on a study abroad called Wizards, Whangdoodles and Whizzpoppers: Children’s Literature in the UK that took place in Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge, and London. In 2018, Martin and Teaching Faculty Annette Goldsmith led iSchool Down Under to Australia and New Zealand. After the COVID-19 pandemic, Mandi Harris, who had life-changing experiences on the 2017 and 2018 programs, returned to the iSchool for a PhD and eagerly agreed to co-direct the 2023 iSchool Aotearoa, the Māori name for New Zealand, with 21 students. In 2024, they repeated Wizards, Whangdoodles and Whizzpoppers but this time visited Newcastle upon Tyne, Oxford and London with 17 students. For 2026, they are planning the first full-quarter (winter) version of iSchool Aotearoa. Although the iSchool runs several study abroad programs every year, this will be the iSchool’s very first quarter-long study abroad since 2014.