Dear beloved IUHPFL community,
Departure day has come and gone! I am very excited for the 119 students who set off on their Summer 2025 IUHPFL adventures just days ago. These students come from 50 different high schools and 27 distinct counties around Indiana. They are incredible young people with varied interests, accomplishments, and goals. We are thrilled for them to come together for what we hope is an extraordinary summer living their languages. You can read more about these students and some of the activities in store for them throughout this newsletter.
This is a bittersweet letter for me to write. Last October, I let IU know that Summer 2025 would be my last as Director of IUHPFL. Coming back to this program as Director after having previously been both an IUHPFL student and, later, an instructor has been an absolute honor. There is no other program like this one, and I have cherished being able to nurture the unique qualities that make this program what it is while also fostering growth and adaptation for a changing world. I am proud of the work my team has accomplished over these past two years including enhancing our outreach efforts to reach more communities and students around Indiana, securing nearly $25,000 in grant funds to support additional student scholarships, nurturing our connections to IU’s outstanding language departments, updating and standardizing IUHPFL curriculum, and, I hope, fostering a program culture that blends high standards, rigor, and dedication with warmth and welcome.
To say that directing a program like IUHPFL requires significant coordination and attention to detail would be an understatement. However, it is that level of detail that makes the program what it is, and I have cherished the opportunity to shape those details alongside the many amazing people who help to bring those details to life onsite. Of course, dedication to a program as intricate and impactful as this one requires considerable time and attention—finite resources that cannot be created anew but must be balanced and shifted among competing priorities. With three young children of my own, it’s time I find a new balance—one that is weighted in their favor so that when they reach IUHPFL age, they have the skills and maturity to set off on their own adventures and I am ready to let them go and grow.
Still, at a time when language knowledge and cross-cultural understanding are more important than ever, I believe IUHPFL is in a unique position to offer services and opportunities that are dwindling or disappearing in other arenas. My team and I have dedicated substantial time this past year to brainstorming, exploring, and laying the foundation for future program advancements that, we hope, will respond to the current environment and offer expanded opportunities for language learning for Hoosier high schoolers. Although I will not be able to see those initiatives through to fruition, I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this special program.
There have been many highlights to my tenure with IUHPFL, but none so clear as the people who make it what it is year to year. I am filled with gratitude for our program coordinator, Anneliese Toumey, who learned the ropes of the program by my side and whose ability and willingness to learn (and often improve!) the myriad systems and processes we use to keep the program running is unmatched; for our financial manager, Laura Kremer, whose longstanding knowledge of and experience with the program has been invaluable and whose kindness and camaraderie is so appreciated; and for our student interns over the past three semesters, Raylen Buckley and Jackson Wright, who brought a level of energy, creativity, and social media savvy to the program that we value and enjoy. The 21 instructors hired over the past two summers have been and continue to be incredible to work with and have shown unparalleled flexibility, humor, and skill, and an inspiring level of dedication to the students they take abroad. I want to thank the onsite staff and host families who bring the program to life abroad and who welcome our students with open arms, and to our Europe-based partners for planning and logistics. Thanks, too, to Jennifer Engel and IU Education Abroad colleagues for fielding my questions and offering guidance. It has been an honor to meet and collaborate with the dedicated high school world language educators around the state who lay the foundation for students’ love of the languages and cultures they study; these are most often the people who plant students’ first seeds of knowledge about and encouragement toward considering IUHPFL (and you can see a few of these teachers featured in this newsletter!). I’m grateful to the many US parents I’ve met and corresponded with for allowing and encouraging their children to pursue this challenging and rewarding experience. The biggest highlight, though, has been getting to know (albeit from a distance) hundreds of incredible Hoosier teenagers who challenge themselves in ways few their age do, support new friends and peers along the way, and achieve amazing things from academic to linguistic to personal. These young people give me hope, make me excited for my own children’s teenage years, and teach me time and again about bravery, persistence, and what we are all capable of if we are given opportunities to safely push ourselves to new horizons.
I can’t wait to see what our students accomplish this summer. We’ll provide updates on their adventures on our social media throughout the summer so you, too, can share in the excitement, the learning, the growth, and the fun.
With gratitude,
Megan