The Hawks of Charlotte Latin flew particularly far this past summer: under the auspices of the school’s Global Studies Department, students traveled to Argentina, Canada, England, France, Italy, South Africa, and Spain. While all of the trips had elements of fun — spotting penguins on the southwestern tip of Africa, getting covered in colored powder in Bordeaux — they also reflected the goals embodied in the Portrait of the Latin Leader. Students had to be Resilient Navigators, especially when travel plans got scrambled because of strikes or technological mishaps. And every single day in a land that was not their own, they were Curious Learners.

The trip to Canada was new this year: 22 Middle School students visited Quebec for five days, getting an experience in French immersion under the guidance of Jenna Sinclair (TK-8 World Languages Department Head). Along the way, they learned about local foods. As one student wrote on the trip’s blog, “We learned how to make maple butter (it involves a LOT of whisking, painful!),” adding “Did you know that you can put maple syrup in pea soup?”

The trip to South Africa was cosponsored by the Student Leadership Development Department: twelve Upper School students visited the country for over two weeks, making it the first Latin trip that students could get academic credit for. The Upper School students learned to play rugby and got close to giraffes on a hike, but they also read Gandhi, volunteered at a local primary school, and grappled with fundamental questions of how leadership and society work.

Latin students have visited France and Italy before; this year, however, the school did it without the assistance of a tour organizer. “We were able to scout and plan the trip with the help of money from the Latin Fund,” said Kelly Willis, Head of Global Studies. “As a result, we found some budget-minded solutions and we were able to have a more ‘bespoke’ trip that better matched the needs of Latin.”

One example: Sia Gullapalli ’27 has been doing an independent research project on how diet affects Alzheimer’s, with the guidance and data of a neuroscience lab at UC Irvine. During the trip to France, she was able to meet with Christelle Glangetas, a faculty member at the University of Bordeaux, tour her lab, and receive expert advice on her project. “I’m really grateful to the Global Studies office, which helped make the arrangements for me to get to the University of Bordeaux,” Gullapalli said. “The visit made me even more interested in neuroscience.”

Gullapalli was able to observe how the French lab not only employed different equipment than the American labs she had visited, but had a different workflow, breaking down research projects into smaller individual responsibilities. “It was one of the best parts of my trip — along with meeting my French host family,” Gullapalli said; she had fond memories of playing the French edition of Monopoly with them. (The equivalent of Boardwalk in the French edition: Rue de la Paix.)

One of the unadvertised benefits of the school’s international travel program is the human connections it fosters. Willis has seen how Latin students and their host families have stayed in touch over the years: some keep visiting each other and end up attending each other’s weddings. “Teachers who are chaperones on the trip get to build a relationship with students they never got to teach,” she pointed out. “And the students have a special bond with each other. When you go through a common experience, you have moments of growth together.”