Franklin University Switzerland (FUS) is a small international university located in the southern Swiss city of Lugano. Founded in 1969 as Franklin College, it was officially renamed Franklin University Switzerland in 2014 and combines the best aspects of university learning from the United States and Switzerland. Continuing its original vision to create a new kind of higher education, FUS now occupies fifteen buildings, including eight residence halls, and offers undergraduate and graduate programs for students from over 60 countries majoring in any of nineteen disciplines on two connected campuses. Academic Travel represents the single most distinctive element of the FUS curriculum, in which travel is used as an experiential learning tool completely integrated into a series of course offerings in disciplines applicable to all majors. FUS’s fundamental values have remained consistent throughout its half-century: personalized learning through interactions both inside and outside the classroom, true understanding of people and culture through direct contact and guided travel; active engagement with the world as an imperative of a global, liberal education.

FUS has attracted some of the most adventurous students, creative faculty, resourceful administrators, and dedicated trustees, and today occupies a leadership position in higher education that is the envy of institutions of far greater size and resources.