Faculty Profiles
Every International Studies student completes an independent senior research project as the capstone of their major coursework. To date over 100 faculty members from academic departments across campus have generously served as Faculty Mentors, helping students approach a research topic from the interdisciplinary perspective reflected in their major coursework. The opportunity to work closely with faculty is a hallmark of the International Studies major.
Rex Honey
“I have always had a strong interest in other cultures and places,” says Rex Honey, UI Professor of Geography and International Studies. “International Studies allows me to share my knowledge and interests with a very talented group of students.”
Rex Honey
The mentoring experience that was most memorable to Honey was with Jessica Bengtson, whose senior project involved an internship in Ghana working for an organization that trained village women to make traditional cloth for sale in Accra.
Honey says he believes that the International Studies major is very beneficial to students on many levels. “The students stretch themselves both culturally and intellectually, sometimes surviving fairly challenging circumstances. They gain appreciation of other ways of doing things, flexibility in times of stress, and a sense of the variation of life on this planet,” Honey adds.
Honey has research projects active in Great Britain, Jordan, New Zealand, Nigeria and India as well as the United States.
Mercedes Niño-Murcia
Associate Professor Mercedes Niño-Murcia & International Studies student Beth Palumbo
Mercedes Niño-Murcia, UI Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and International Studies, believes that an international education is an integral part of a solid undergraduate experience. The time she spends mentoring senior projects gives her the opportunity to work with many students who have recently returned from their experiences abroad - full of ideas and enthusiasm - trying to tie together all of the threads of their International Studies major.
“Witnessing the excitement that the sense of discovering a new horizon in life produces in the students is such a rewarding experience for me. I have not only one but many of those experiences that I deeply cherish,” says Niño-Murcia, a faculty mentor of International Studies students. She is currently mentoring UI Senior Beth Palumbo who recently returned from her studies abroad in Chile.
Niño-Murcio has the following advice for students with interests in traveling/studying/working abroad:
“Make sure you don’t graduate from the University of Iowa without testing life out of this country. You will be surprised how the experience changes your life in positive ways,” she says. “The effects of the experiences abroad are visible when students return from studying abroad.
Niño-Murcio specializes in sociolinguistics. Her research has taken her throughout Latin America.