Clarence & Alberta Giese Endowed Scholarship
You are here
IES Abroad began with an inspired plan: offer 23 American college students the opportunity to study in post-World War II Vienna, providing them insight into and an understanding of Europe. At the core of this inspiration were Paul Koutny and Clarence and Alberta Giese. Koutny, an Austrian and World War II prison-camp survivor, traveled to the United States as an exchange student in 1949. While in the US, Paul traveled to Chicago to discuss the idea of offering a year of study abroad to American college students. While in Chicago, he met Clarence and Alberta Giese. After his visit to Chicago, Koutny returned to Vienna to prepare a space for the first group of students who were to travel abroad. Clarence and Alberta remained in Chicago to organize the students and prepare for the crossing to Europe aboard the Holland-America ship, the Volendam.
Over the next several years the Gieses worked with Koutny to administer the study abroad program that would eventually grow into IES Abroad. For an April 1953 article in Today, Koutny said, "The main idea of the Institute is to create a better understand between two continents." Sixty-six years and 115,000+ students later, there can be no doubt that the early vision of these pioneers was more than fulfilled.
