Political Science Professor Renford Reese was first bitten by the travel bug as a college senior at Vanderbilt University.

He had a good friend at the time attending Spelman College who was in France as part of a student exchange program, and his mentor at the firm where he was working, attorney Jesse Spikes, convinced him to do things Reese hadn't done up to that point - get a passport and take that international flight to Europe. Spikes, a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate, was from Reese's hometown of McDonough, Georgia.

"He spoke of going to Paris like it was flying from one state to the next," Reese said of Spikes. "He was the first global citizen that I met."

That initial trip to France, and also Germany fundamentally changed Reese, who has traveled to 104 countries. He now leads annual, short-term study abroad trips to places like Ghana, Mumbai, Brussels and Hong Kong for Cal Poly Pomona students. However, with costs ranging from $2,500 for a two-week trip to Europe and $4,500 for Africa, the experience is out of reach for many students who don't have the funds.

Reese hopes to bridge that experience gap with the help of a $100,000 donation he recently made to fund study abroad opportunities for students.

The funds come from the sale of a parcel of vacant land he owned in Pomona to a nonprofit housing development organization named Elev8. The money will fund 20, $500 scholarships over 10 years. Reese plans to solicit donations from past participants of study abroad, faculty and other supporters of the program to double the fund to $200,000, enough to provide 40, scholarships.

"The university, the students, the staff and my colleagues - they have given me everything," said the 54-year-old, who has been at Cal Poly Pomona for 26 years. "And I want to give back to the university what the university has given me. I didn't want to do it in my will. I wanted to do it while I am still living."

Reese said that while the gift is targeting the general undergraduate population, he wants to encourage formerly incarcerated students in the university's Project Rebound program, as well as students in Renaissance Scholars and McNair Scholars to also apply for study abroad travel funds.

So far, Reese has taken 330 students on study abroad trips to 10 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa and Canada. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he was forced to get creative, taking 24 students on a study away trip to Palm Desert.

While the trips squeeze in a little sightseeing, the students spend the bulk of their time doing volunteer work for non-governmental organizations and nonprofits.

"We have taken the classroom away from campus and are immersing the students in experiential learning, which is the cornerstone of the pedagogical philosophy at Cal Poly Pomona," Reese said. "In order to be a compelling person, you have to put yourself in a compelling situation. I tell students that before we go on every trip."

For alumna Grace Olguin ('13, sociology), the study abroad trip she took with Reese to Tanzania in 2012 as a student spurned both a desire to see more of the world and to encourage others to do the same.

Olguin was the first in her family to go to college and had never traveled internationally except to visit family in Mexico.

"I was a sociology student, so I was interested in learning about other cultures, customs, history and people. Going to East Africa really broadened my world view as a young student," she said. "After I graduated, I was motivated to continue exploring and learning about the world in an experiential way. That's what study abroad is. It's a class, but you're not sitting in a classroom the whole semester. You're traveling to a different country, and able to learn with all of your senses. This is the value study abroad brings to so many students."

After graduating, Olguin taught at a trilingual school in Thailand. She has traveled to 17 countries since her first trip abroad. In 2015, she returned to Cal Poly Pomona to work as a study abroad advisor. She worked with Reese to take programs to Hong Kong, Dubai, London, Paris and Vancouver.

Olguin, who took a job as a member support coordinator for downtown Los Angeles-based nonprofit Garment Worker Center in 2021, recalled the difficulty students had in trying to raise funds for study abroad trips, with the money they earned from working needed for bills and the financial aid limited.

"As an advisor, I would provide fundraising templates to students and connect them with scholarships," she said. "There is a need for Cal Poly Pomona to invest in short-term, faculty-led programs, so the fact that Dr. Reese has invested $100,000 for student scholarships in incredible. I have no doubt that he is going to raise the matching funds."

Matt Walters, director of the university's International Center, which oversees study abroad, said scholarships for the program are few and far between and extremely competitive nationally. Many of Cal Poly Pomona's students are first generation and they are often late in hearing about study abroad opportunities, if they are familiar with them at all.

"It's not uncommon for our students to never have imagined that international experience could be a part of their academic career," he said.

An internal source of scholarships like the one Reese is supporting will help those students who might otherwise miss the deadline for these sorts of opportunities, Walters added.

Recruiting for these sorts of programs can be difficult with the cost, but Reese has the trust and respect of students, so he can get participants, said Walters.

"Doing a faculty-led program is a lot of work and super labor intensive," he said. "The faculty who take on that responsibility are super committed. Renford is such a champion of study abroad and the students. For a faculty to step up and give $100,000 is amazing."

Reese said his travels have made him feel comfortable being a global citizen, and he wants to instill that same sort of confidence in students.

"The most transformative experience for my students has been study abroad. While you might see a student evolve over a semester, when they are abroad, you see students grow and evolve every hour with every activity," he said. "I know the power of travel, how transformative it is. There is beauty all over the world, and if I can expose students to a fraction of what I experienced by traveling the world, that will be a success."