Schluntz named director of Education Abroad at International Programs

Erika Lee Schluntz has been hired as the new director of Education Abroad in the International Programs Office.

Schluntz will oversee study-abroad programs on six continents, including locations such as Australia, China, Japan, England, Egypt, Italy, South Africa, France and Germany. Every year, approximately 1,000 Amherst campus students study abroad, according to Frank Hugus, director of International Programs and associate provost.

“All of us in the International Programs Office are very pleased to be able to welcome Erika Schluntz to UMass Amherst,” said Hugus. “Erika brings to campus the experience, professional skills, and personal dynamism that will help our office enhance its current overseas programs and create new and exciting study-abroad offerings so that we can serve the needs of the UMass Amherst community even better in the years ahead.”

Schluntz comes to Amherst from Stonehill College in Easton, where she had been a professor of religious studies since 1996. In the fall of 2001 in the wake of 9/11, Schluntz was asked by the Stonehill College administration to create an office of international programs for the campus and was subsequently appointed director of the office in early 2002.

Schluntz earned her bachelor’s degree in the comparative study of religion and her master’s of divinity from Harvard University in 1985 and 1988, respectively. She was awarded her Ph.D. in old world archeology and art from Brown University in 1999. As an undergraduate, Schluntz studied in Greece. She has conducted archaeological field work in Europe and the Middle East, a subject on which she has also published.

February 8, 2008.