From all of us at CGIS, we would like to congratulate U-M Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics, Lorenzo García-Amaya, on being the first recipient of the Rising Professionals President’s Award for Leadership in International Education. The President's Award ceremony took place on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. 

Professor García-Amaya has worked on numerous study abroad programs since 2005 including the CGIS Spring/Summer Advanced Spanish programs in Alicante (Summer 2024) and Santiago de Compostela (Spring 2022, 2023, 2025) as well as the CGIS Advanced Spanish and Culture program in Granada (Winter 2024). We are very proud of Professor García-Amaya's achievement and are very honored to work with him on coordinating and conducting transformative, meaningful intercultural experiences in Spain. 

Professor García-Amaya has been selected by Romance Languages and Literatures and CGIS to lead the CGIS: Advanced Spanish in Santiago de Compostela, Spain experience once again in Spring/Summer 2026. Visit the M-Compass program brochure to learn more about this study abroad opportunity! Applications will open in early October 2025 and will be due on January 15, 2026.

 

We would like to take this opportunity to feature Professor García-Amaya's award remarks as part of the CGIS Blog. In his remarks, he talks about his inspiration to become an educator and his commitment to creating language and culture-immersive experiences.

 

You can also view these remarks on YouTube.

 

 

President's Award for Leadership in International Education ceremony, September 12, 2025:

Lorenzo García-Amaya:

Good morning everyone, and thank you.

Receiving the President’s Award for Leadership in International Education is a profound honor. It is also very personal. Let me share why.

 

I come from a humble community in southern Spain. My parents grew up in a country devastated by the Spanish Civil War, and that history shaped their education and their chances. My mother, coming from a family of two siblings, completed two years of high school and was trained as a seamstress. But in her world, women were expected to care for others, not to study. My father came from a family of nine siblings. He attended school for only a few months. By age six, he was herding goats and sheep with one of his brothers, moving the animals from town to town for a small stipend.

One day, my father and his brother were returning home from working on a farm. Suddenly, a car pulled up, three men jumped out, and tried to kidnap them. A group of officers on the scene came to rescue my father and his brother. They ordered the men to release the two brothers, and they were set free. Stories of missing children were not uncommon in the Spain of the 1950’s and certainly others weren’t so fortunate. We now know that many families lost their children in a variety of circumstances and never saw them again.

That memory stays with me. I have heard this story countless times since I was a little child from both my dad and my uncle. It speaks to the trauma they carried, and perhaps why retelling the moment of release helped them find a measure of calm. I often think: if those officers had not decided to act, I might not be here today.

 

Here is the lesson I draw from it. We have all heard that a lack of education breeds ignorance. More importantly, it breeds vulnerability. In a different reality, my father and his brother would have been in school and safely home by the end of the day.

That is why this work matters to me. Because I have seen, up close, what a lack of education can do to a life. For that reason, I have devoted my own life to educating myself and to educating others.

 

Imagine now that you are a student in one of my classes abroad, and I tell you my father’s story. Imagine your host parent is my parents’ age, as is often the case in our programs. As a curious student, wouldn’t you want to know more? Who were those men? Why were children being kidnapped? Why did authorities allow it? What happened to other children? Now imagine asking those questions in Spanish, in Spain, of people who lived through that era. Language becomes personal. Listening becomes urgent.

 

 

That conviction also comes from my own path. Personally, as a first-generation college student, I have been fortunate to benefit from international education. As I worked on these remarks, I wondered if, after studying and working at seven universities in four countries, I might have overdone it.

But each place stretched me as a person, a mentor, a researcher, and an administrator. Across fifteen programs I have taught and led, I have watched how place changes what students hear, what they say, and who they become. Place, in and of itself, is a teacher.

 

Photo: Leisa Thompson, Michigan Photography

Professionally, that belief guides my research. I am a linguist specializing in Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism. My first research question was whether study abroad accelerates acquisition. In principle, it should, because there are endless opportunities to interact with speakers who have mastered the language over a lifetime. So, what have we found? Yes, learners can become more fluent. But the size of the gain hinges on two key factors: how much language they actually use, and their psychological preparedness for using a second language in an immersive context.

These data represent both a result and an opportunity. How do we build supports that keep the second language alive earlier and longer? I believe the answer begins before departure. I am currently proposing a pre-departure class that stages the first week in virtual reality so students practice it, for real, before they go abroad, beginning with day-one essentials: introductions and small talk, asking for directions or transit passes, and conducting daily purchases, so they land already warmed up, confident, and ready to go. The immediate payoff would happen abroad with a smoother and more confident start. And over time, those experiences will flow back into our classrooms.

 

Recently, I crossed a border with my parents for the first time in their lives on a trip to Portugal. We took a family photo we never could have taken before. People of limited means from my parents’ generation did not travel much abroad. Though I have invited them to visit the U.S. many times before, they have always hesitated. Possibly, their limited schooling and their life experiences have made them apprehensive about leaving Spain.

And when we think of it, travel asks us to tolerate uncertainty and a loss of control. Education and the ability to operate in more than one language restore agency. It gives us tools to navigate what we cannot predict, to deal with the unknown.

 

Photo: Leisa Thompson, Michigan Photography

Which brings me to my closing thought. That picture with my parents does not erase what came before, it reframes it. Education changed what could be in the frame, who could stand there, and how. International education does this every day: it widens the frame for our students and for the communities that welcome them.

Let us commit to that work. Let us keep widening it, by preparing well, opening doors, and choosing to listen. If one moment of courage once altered my family’s future, imagine what thousands of acts of understanding can do for our students.

This is why I teach, why I research, and why I am committed to international education. Because every time a student crosses a border, on a map or in the mind, we advance Michigan’s mission.

Thank you to my family, to my colleagues and staff, to our partners abroad, and to our students who make this work matter.