Institute for the International Education of Students

IES Abroad offered its first program in September 1950, when Paul Koutny, an Austrian student living in the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship, brought American students to live and study in Vienna, Austria for a year. Two of the students from the original program, newlyweds Clarence and Alberta Giese, returned after the program inspired to help other students study abroad. From their Chicago home, they worked with Koutny to recruit more students and send them abroad. William Louis Gaines, the son of a railroad worker who served in World War II and marched with Martin Luther King Jr., served as president of IES from 1974 until his 1992 retirement "through some of its most challenging years". IES Abroad developed a Model Assessment Practice in 1999 as a framework for the design, development, and evaluation of programs of study abroad. This program formed the basis for the standards of the Forum on Education Abroad adopted by the field. In 2010, IES Abroad was the first third-party provider to receive the Forum on Education Abroad's Category 2b Quality Improvement Designation, which involves independent reviewers using evaluation systems to make program improvements. ==Notable alumni==