Returnee Events

Returnee Events

• Welcome Back Luncheon

  This event is offered at the beginning of each semester to welcome back returnees from study away and includes opportunities to:

  • • Enjoy a free lunch

  • • Explore the re­entry process

  • • Hear about places where you can find support on campus

  • • See the faces of the classmates you’ve missed

  • • Share reflections and experiences from studying away

• Returnee Lunch Series

  The weekly lunches held on most Tuesdays from noon to 1 p.m. are designed to give recent study away returnees a chance to gather with each other and a facilitator (peers, faculty or staff) to reflect on and discuss issues that come up with particular salience to study away programs. Recent topics have included:

  • • Coming Home: Settling In, Getting Closure, Returning and Beyond

  • • Family, Friendships, Flirtationships, Frenemies: Processing and Maintaining Relationships Away and at Home

  • • Career After Study Away

  • • Food Cultures

  • • *Religion & Faith & Study Away

  • • Roads Open: Grant/Research opportunities, Graduate Programs, local/global community service

  • • *Mental Health While Away

  • • *Identity and Study Away

  • • Archiving Memories

  *These topics are often open to outgoing students pre-departure as well as returnees

• Reintegration Event

  The Returnee Reintegration Event, held once or twice per academic year, is a workshop and/or field trip for returning students to discuss and process their study away experiences and to imagine how they will integrate what they learned while away into life at Macalester and their future learning. Another objective of this event is to help students engage with the local/global community in the Twin Cities. Recent reintegration events have included:

  • • Midtown Global Market

  • • East Side Freedom Library

• Study Away Photo Contest

  In honor of National Study Abroad Day, the CSA hosts a photo & video contest in the spring semester to engage students and the greater campus community in celebrating study away. This opportunity allows students to continue to connect with moments and memories from study away and offers a creative space to be in community with other peers who also studied away.

  Study away alums submit photos & videos and reflections that connect their study away experience with one or more of the IGC’s priorities. The photo/video should showcase an experience or activity that actively contributed to the student’s deeper understanding of or connection to the IGC’s priorities. Photos/videos must have been taken by the student submitting the photo/video while participating in their study away program (domestic, international, short-term, summer, etc). All members of the Macalester community are then invited to vote on their favorites in each category.

  2026 Winners:

  • Category 1- Co-create interdisciplinary knowledge about the local/global nexus: Rose Fanuzzi. Palestina Libera

  • Category 2- Infuse diverse, embodied ways of knowing in place-based action and reflection: Emily Hueser. Meeting the Locals

  • Category 3- Foster communities, partnerships, and belonging without othering: Danielle Nartey. Sur la Seine

  • Category 4 – Video: Sam Schafer. A Shepherd Herding His Sheep