If a picture paints a thousand words, then the UC Davis community is in for a good tale or two with the Education Abroad Photo Contest 2009.

From now until Nov. 15, everyone is invited to choose their favorite photos taken by UC Davis students who traveled abroad during the 2008-09 academic year.

To vote, people simply need to go to the site, register and then vote for as many photos as they want. They can also return to the site, log in and vote for more photos, although they can vote only once per photo.

Winners will be announced on Nov. 16, at the beginning of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange.

UC Davis educational leaders believe studying abroad is important for students because it widens their vistas, said Zak Frieders, associate director of the Education Abroad Center.

“Most of what we do these days has an international component: media, politics, business, everything,” Frieders said. “It’s a global economy, it’s a global market, a global world.”

A major goal of the contest is to entice more students into studying in another country, he said.

This year, more than 1,300 students were invited to submit photos. While this is not the first photo contest run by the Education Abroad Center, it is the biggest, with more than 500 photo entries.

The contest is a coordinated effort by the Education Abroad Center and University Communications. Sponsors include Student Affairs, University Outreach and International Programs, and the Campus Community Book Project.

“This contest was designed to get as many people as we can to look at great student photography and see the world through students’ eyes,” says Susanne Rockwell, Web editor for University Communications.

The first-place winner in each category will receive a $100 gift certificate to the UC Davis Bookstore, and those in second place will win a copy of this year’s campus community book project, "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World," plus a ticket to hear author Eric Weiner speak at the Mondavi Center on Dec. 1.

There’s a connection between the campus’s emphasis on study abroad and this year’s campus book, said Mikael Villalobos, administrator of diversity education programs on campus and chair of the annual campus community book project.

“For a student who wants the education abroad experience, finding one’s bliss, whether it is in the learning experience or the relationships that you build or your exposure to a different culture … all make up what bliss may be to that person as part of the experience of going abroad,” he said.

About UC Davis

For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.