Language Requirement: None
Academic Standing by Program Start: Sophmore
Location: Europe, United Kingdom, England
GPA: 3.0

Program Overview

This program is planning to run again in Summer 2026

THE LEADER IN YOU: Environments of Revolutionary Imagination

The Leader in You is an active, innovative global learning course about leadership and its interdisciplinary creativity. This course builds on the University of Oregon’s mission to foster the next generation of informed transformational leaders and active participants in the global community. Topics include the actual and intellectual study abroad journeys of Exemplars such as architects and artists, authors and scientists, technologists and legislators, performers and others whose own study abroad influenced how they developed new, revolutionary ways to conceive, express, and live in their world.

The focus is on the people who created these environments and how those environments impacted their lives and inspired others culturally, politically, or through design.

Come and embark on a three-week exploration of Oxford that combines classroom lectures, discussions, and site visits to museums and gardens, rivers and theatres, and more. In this program, you will get to engage in Oxford’s vibrant cultural and educational world, both past and present.

Program Notes:

  • On-site Experience: Includes classroom lectures, reflections, daily site visits, and events.
  • Research Opportunity: Conduct independent research on a chosen person, culminating in a personalized book.
  • Holistic Learning: Designed for students across various majors, from psychology to journalism (see academic details below).
  • Engaging Activities: Attend seminars, historic venue visits, performances, and one-on-one advising.
  • Pre-Departure Prep: Group and individual meetings in Spring term.
  • Post-Program: Reunion dinner, submission of journals and final projects, presentation of final project, ongoing opportunities for 1:1 support from faculty. 

Tentative Itinerary (subject to change)

WEEK 1:

  • SAT: Arrival
  • SUN: Orientation, Walking tour of Oxford, Group dinner
  • MON: Origins of Alice in Wonderland
  • TUES: Tolkien and Storytelling
  • WEDS: Resilient Buildings and Landscapes Lab
  • THURS: Oscar Wilde
  • FRI: London excursion

WEEK 2:

  • MON: Oscar Wilde and Civil and Human Rights
  • TUES: Chaos Theory
  • WEDS: Social Environments
  • THURS: Happiness and Neuroscience
  • FRI: London excursion

WEEK 3:

  • MON: Imagining Peace
  • TUES: Regenerative Agriculture
  • WEDS: Restorative Wildlife
  • THURS: Exploring a New Location
  • FRI: Program Closing

Dates and Deadlines

 
Term Year Deadline Arrival Date Departure Date
Summer 2026 03/15/2026 TBD TBD

This program has a rolling admission application process: GEO staff (and the program faculty leader, if applicable) will complete a review of the application materials of complete applications in the order that they are submitted (“first come, first serve”). Decisions about acceptance will be made shortly after you submit a complete application. There are some programs that fill fast, some even before the deadline. Students are encouraged to complete applications and commit to programs early.

Acceptance is based on a holistic review of your application.  This includes a review of your GPA, transcripts (including courses taken and in-progress), any additional requirements or prerequisites (see section "Additional Requirements"), and the short statement. Some programs require a letter of recommendation from a faculty that is not the program's faculty leader. If a letter of recommendation is required, you will find more information in your GEO application portal.

Hear from Our Students

My Experience in Oxford

Group of seven college students posing in front of historic building.
I loved my experience in Oxford, U.K. I was able to visit many places with my amazing peers and see beautiful, older architecture that is so classical. I visited the Oxford Botanical Gardens, Christ… read more

Faculty-Led Scholarship Opportunity

Applicants to this program are eligible for program-specific scholarship funds. Award recipients are chosen based on academic merit, financial need, and overall quality of their essay. Individual awards range from $500-$1,500. To be considered, apply to the GEO General Scholarship by the advertised deadline for the term you will be abroad. Students who apply will automatically be considered for all available funding within the General Scholarship, including this program's scholarship funds.

Discount for Pell Recipients

To expand access to study abroad, GEO is offering a $500 discount for this program to UO students who currently have the Pell Grant as part of their federal financial aid (FAFSA).

Academic Details

ENVD 388 -- THE LEADER IN YOU: Environments of Revolutionary Imagination

This program offers one 6-credit ENVD course. This course can also fulfill the following:

  • Environmental Studies: ENVS Area 3B Sustainable Design Foundation course
  • Landscape Architecture: Either LA 260 Understanding Landscapes or LA 472 Landscape Architectural Theory
  • CHC Honors College: One Arts and Letters Colloquium requirement.

Everyone is expected to be intellectually curious, ethically motivated, tolerant, flexible, connected, and self-learners.

Each student will choose an individual Exemplar to research and map, a process that will inform their own career pathway. Faculty will highlight historical and contemporary Exemplars throughout the course lectures and discussions as a common feature of our learning community. Coursework builds upon the introductory winter term ENVD course and ENVD spring studio, but these ENVD courses are not required in order to join this program. Students from any major and any level in their academic degree program are encouraged to participate.

Course Equivalencies

UO students: please refer to the UO Course Equivalency Process and the UO Office of the Registrar Course Equivalency Database.

Non-UO students: Actual credit awarded is determined by the relevant department at your university in consultation with the study abroad office. Check with your study abroad advisor for more information.

Additional Requirements

Students from any major and any level in their academic degree program are encouraged to participate.

Coursework builds upon the introductory winter term ENVD course and ENVD spring studio, but these ENVD courses are not required in order to join this program.

Students are expected to be:

  • Intellectually curious. That is, you are interested in learning -- and learning more!  You are aware that most important issues are complex and interrelated and require rigor to unpack.
  • Ethically motivated. You seek to understand the ethical consequences of yours and others’ decisions, actions, and beliefs. You articulate your values and can evaluate new ideas or experiences and make informed and principled decisions.
  • Tolerant and Flexible. You tolerate ambiguity, embrace uncertainly, and can solve problems in new or unusual settings. You are willing to suspend judgment while investigating a topic from multiple perspectives.
  • Connected. You contextualize issues relevant today as well as historically and seek links or patterns between multiple disciplines, experiences, and perspectives.
  • Self-learners. You seek out ideas, information, and questions. You process what you experience and learn, reflect on it, and apply it.

Faculty and Staff

Julie Voelker-Morris, faculty in the School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management, facilitates learning that is experiential, builds skills in cultural agility, focuses on both self and professional development, and engages in arts & cultural programming. Students in this study abroad course are invited to see themselves, their interests, and their questions within all coursework to make it relevant to them. I want all students to find the entry point and moment to direct their own learning—as well as to become a central contributor to our learning community. 

Professor Barbara Mossberg ("Dr. B") is an internationally renowned leader in the field of study abroad, recipient of the national award Outstanding Program of Faculty-Led Study Abroad for her work on "The Genius of Study Abroad" on which this program builds. Recipient of the University's Ersted Award for Distinguished Teaching, and Provost Innovation Award for teaching this course in a remote-learning format, Mossberg is Professor of Practice at the Clark Honors College for the University of Oregon, teaching courses on leadership and revolutionary imagination and "the art of living," involving leadership across disciplinary sectors around the concept of "your inner genius." President Emerita of Goddard College, she has served many institutions as an academic leader, and is a specialist as a scholar on cultural leadership. As a city poet laureate and involved in dramatic arts, she uses literature, drama, and science as "texts" that illuminate one's inner purpose and direction. She has served as the Bicentennial Chair at the University of Helsinki twice as the Fulbright Senior Distinguished Scholar, is a Fulbright Specialist, and U.S. Scholar in Residence for the United States Information Agency with the State Department as a cultural ambassador and promoter of study abroad and international education. She has worked in over 20 countries as a speaker and consultant on international education, and taught widely on transformational learning experiences including the art of and science of travel. A scholar of transformational learning, she sees advising and mentoring as the critical dimension of her teaching philosophy and practice, linking students' aspirations to serve and our society's need of their learning. 

Housing Description

Shared student housing in Oxford.