Day: June 10, 2026

Michigan Tech’s Wales Study Abroad Program Continues to Evolve with Gilman Pioneering Institution Grant

Michigan Tech students pose beneath a massive red sign that says, “Eisteddfod” during the festival in 2025.
In 2025, Michigan Tech’s study abroad trip to Wales expanded to include the National Eisteddfod, the country’s largest festival. A $10,000 grant will help expand the 2027 trip to focus on critical minerals and the copper industry. Photos courtesy of Mark Rhodes.

Tech’s semiannual study abroad trip to Wales, supported by the social sciences department, takes a new focus on critical copper connections in 2027, following the receipt of a $10,000 Pioneering Institution Grant from the Gilman Program. Mark Rhodes, an associate professor of geography, has led the study abroad program since its inception as an ethnographic research trip in 2022. That year, a combination of 14 graduate students and community members attended.

“While our primary goal was collecting data, in the back of my mind, I was already starting to plan out a program,” said Rhodes.