What an exciting time of year! Last week, 124 students from 50 different Hoosier high schools began their IUHPFL journeys in Austria, France, and Spain. You can read and see some updates from last week’s departure days in this newsletter. They were fantastic (and long!) days filled with a range of emotions. But the prevailing emotion was excitement for the adventures ahead.
It has been a busy several months here in Bloomington and in our program sites preparing for those adventures. So many people contribute to the success of the program and play an integral role in making sure all of the details that make IUHPFL unique and successful come together—instructors, onsite coordinators, service providers, host families, IU partners and collaborators, parents, and students. In this issue, you’ll be able to read about a few of these people in our spotlights and features sections. You can also read about some incredible alumni endeavors (some that help support IUHPFL’s current students in substantial ways) and new tweaks to the program that we’re excited to debut this summer.
For a program with as long and rich of a history as IUHPFL, change can be challenging. As a program alumnus myself, I want this year’s participants to experience the same incredible and life-changing IUHPFL program that I did 20+ years ago. Of course, that is an impossible wish. No two IUHPFL experiences are the same, and a key message at this year’s Student-Guardian Orientation was for students to embrace and take charge of their own IUHPFL journey. For the program, too, change is inevitable and necessary. However, I would argue that responding and adapting to the changes we observe and experience in the world and in the students we serve will allow IUHPFL to continue to realize its long-standing mission of providing a unique and intensive language and cultural immersion experience for Indiana high school students.
We hope you enjoy the updates in this newsletter, that you share them with friends and family (and potential future IUHPFL students!), and that you join us—virtually, in spirit, in person, through testimonials, through emails, through donations, etc.—on the amazing IUHPFL adventures ahead.