Eleven students from the arid Middle East and North Africa convened in drought-stricken San Angelo, Texas, over the summer — to learn about water.

U.S. Department of State awarded the University of Kentucky a $1.7 million grant to partner with universities in the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, through the “University Partnership in Business Administration” program. The Public Affairs Sections of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the U.S. Consulate General in Peshawar are facilitating the program to support higher education in Pakistan and to increase collaborations between U.S. and Pakistani universities.

What began as a small medical mission trip to Ecuador  in 2002 for a group of pediatric medical residents led by Dr. Thomas Young, professor of pediatrics at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, has evolved over the years into a large multidisciplinary, interprofessional partnership between UK and the local community working together to discover new and improved ways to teach, learn, and serve vulnerable and resource-poor communities in Ecuador.

Education Abroad in the University of Kentucky International Center has developed a new online “toolkit” for faculty members who are interested in embedding international education experiences into their otherwise residential courses: www.uky.edu/toolkit.

Recently the University of Kentucky's College of Design and School of Art and Visual Studies in the College of Fine Arts welcomed to campus a group of students and faculty from Shanghai University with interests in the fields of art and design.

Hanban, the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing, has designated the University of Kentucky Confucius Institute as the official Chinese proficiency test center for the state of Kentucky.

The HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) and the YCT (Youth Chinese Test), are proficiency exams that rank Chinese language learners on different levels of mastery.

University of Kentucky students and faculty will travel to Shanghai in May to share Appalachian culture at the American Studies Center at Shanghai University.

The  American Studies Center, funded by a grant from The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, is one of 10 similar centers in China. In December 2011, UK signed a joint-venture agreement with Shanghai University to pioneer the center on the SU campus.

Arts and Sciences began using Global Classroom Connections in March to provide cross-cultural experiences and possibly even help develop friendships among students at UK and in other countries. Global Classroom Connections also allows faculty to collaborate with institutions outside of the U.S. through electronic links between courses.

During the spring semester, A&S faculty were asked to propose links between A&S courses and courses at institutions outside the U.S. Five courses were chosen for the first set of Global Classroom Connections courses.

While Americans may complain about fuel prices, the availability and access to transportation fuel is something that most can take for granted. Several University of Kentucky College of Engineering students from the Paducah campus recently learned that is not necessarily so in other areas of the world.

The University of Kentucky, in collaboration with 150 other institutions across the nation, is leading an effort to combat world hunger.

Universities Fighting World Hunger (UFWH), a partnership program initiated by Auburn University and the UN World Food Programme, was founded to develop and implement action agendas for students and faculty across the globe. The program aims to increase hunger awareness, fundraising, advocacy and academic initiatives, to create a leading university community fully engaged in the effort to eliminate world hunger.