TAMIU Students Selected for Cambodia Travel-Study Program

15 Texas A&M International University students have been selected to travel to Cambodia as part of the University’s “Reading the Globe” Study-Travel Program during Spring Break 2011.

The students were selected for the study-travel opportunity based on an application, interview and personal essays they submitted for this year’s “Reading the Globe” text, “The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine” by Somaly Mam, who visited the TAMIU campus this Fall. The TAMIU group will join student counterparts from West Texas A&M University for a historic joint travel-study initiative in March 2011.

The students selected are Arturo James Crake, Marcos Roel Cruz, Karen Cristina De La Garza, Olinda Victoria Domínguez, Amanda Michelle Garza, Oscar Eduardo Leyva, María Andrea Martínez, Javier Mendoza, Vanessa M. Navarro, Phillipe Quach, Evelyn F. Richardson, Carolina Yvette Salazar, Erika Salazar, Reymundo Salinas and Luís Alberto Vela.

University College’s Conchita Hickey, who coordinates the campus’ reading initiative, said it provides a rare opportunity for students.


“We’re an international university, committed to helping students to expand their horizons with global experiences, but this is truly a remarkable opportunity for our students. We are much blessed that TAMIU and its partners are able to make this available to our students,” Hickey said.


These students and others will host Saturday’s (Nov. 13) “Healing Cambodia Bicycle Race and Fun Run/Walk/Bike” fundraiser to demonstrate the impact of the book. Cost to participate is $30. Proceeds go to the Somaly Mam Foundation and PEPY, an organization devoted to improving the quality of education offered in government schools in rural Cambodia.

Registration begins at 7 a.m. and the race begins at 8 a.m. Participants will bicycle, walk or jog along TAMIU’s Loop inside the campus. The events are open to the public.

The event is sponsored by the TAMIU Reading the Globe Ambassadors.

This is the third TAMIU group to travel abroad as part of their “Reading the Globe” experience. In Spring 2009, 15 students went to Poland as part of the campus read, “All But My Life,” by Gerda Weissmann Klein. In January 2010, Ishmael Beah’s “A Long Way Gone,” set in Sierra Leone, near Ghana, saw 15 students travel to that West African nation. All student travel has been made possible in part by the generosity of the Lupe and Lilia Martinez Foundation of Laredo.

The students’ accounts of their experiences are archived in blog and photos on the University’s website at tamiu.edu/spotlight

To learn more about this year's Reading the Globe offering or help support future initiatives, please visit University College offices in University Success Center 223, phone 956.326.2134 or e-mail chickey@tamiu.edu

Additional information is available @txamiu on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at prmis@tamiu.edu