The University of Central Arkansas in Conway announced on Thursday that Bunny and Carol Adcock have established a $1 million endowment for study abroad opportunities.
A check presentation is set for 2 p.m. Tuesday in the Wingo Hall Board of Trustees Conference Room.
The Adcock Study Abroad Fund will "provide opportunities for generations of UCA students to travel the world, learn other cultures and languages, interact with others and really change UCA and Arkansas," UCA President Tom Courtway said in a news release. "What these students will learn and experience, and then bring back to UCA and our state will pay enormous dividends for our state and institution down the road."
This is the second endowment from the Adcocks for study abroad opportunities. The first was for students majoring in a foreign language who also planned to become educators. It has has provided a total of $45,000 to more than 80 students since 2000.
Carol Adcock was a foreign language instructor at UCA and an adviser for foreign language student teachers in the 1970s. When she was a student, she studied abroad in France and Mexico.
The most recent endowment, though, will allow full-time students of all majors and career paths to apply for the study abroad funds, with preference given to students majoring in a foreign language. The scholarships will fund up to 75 percent of program costs that include travel, food, lodging and tuition and fees.
"That's all a part of growing and expanding your horizons and that's what will happen to these students. They will grow and develop and be more educated because they left McGehee, Arkansas, and saw there’s a lot more to this world than just McGehee," Bunny said in the release, referring to his own hometown. "It's just like studying history. It is part of an education."