As winter quarter approaches, the Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) is preparing to launch its all-new program in Madrid, the University’s first program offered in Spain since its Salamanca program closed during the 1990-91 academic year.

According to BOSP Director Norman Naimark, a professor of Eastern European studies, the Madrid program is ready to receive its first group of students.

“We are very happy about the progress of the program,” he wrote in an email to The Daily. “We have hired a first-rate, highly experienced director, Prof. Santiago Tejerina-Canal, who was professor of Spanish, chair of the Spanish Department at Hamilton [College in Clinton, N.Y.] and director of a very successful Hamilton program in Madrid for a number of years.”

Naimark added that Michael Predmore, a professor of Spanish and Portugese, and Herb Klein, professor of history and Latin-American studies, have signed on to serve as professors-in-residence for the winter and spring quarters, respectively.

Located on the campus of the International Institute in Madrid, the BOSP program will offer Stanford students the opportunity to take courses ranging from Iberian studies and Spanish literature to economics and political science, while immersing themselves in the culture and atmosphere of Spain’s capital city.

For the program’s opening quarter, the number of applications (77) was more than twice the number of slots available (35), making the demand for the program greater than that of any other overseas location. Naimark credits the high demand to long-standing student desire for a study-abroad program in Spain.

“There is a lot of pent-up student demand for a program in Spain,” Naimark said. “We expect that the high numbers of applicants to available spots will normalize over the course of a couple of years. We don’t like to turn down that many applicants.”

Naimark has been working to develop a BOSP program in Spain since he first became director of the program two years ago. While constructing the program and finding an appropriate staff were difficult, coordinating the plans with Spanish authorities added another layer of complexity.

“Dealing with the Spanish bureaucracy is not easy,” Naimark said. “There are a number of challenges getting legal status in Spain, but those have been overcome.”

This winter’s participants will be seen as a “pioneer group,” Naimark said. He said BOSP administrators will examine the experiences of this first group closely in an effort to ensure the long-term success of the program.

“There was, of course, a program in Salamanca quite a number of years ago,” Naimark said. “It closed in part because of the perception of the program’s narrowness of “We have to meet student and faculty needs for an intellectually exciting, academically viable and meaningful overseas studies program in Spain,” he added. “This first group of students — and faculty — will help us understand whether we are doing that and what we can do better.”

Although the BOSP program in Santiago, Chile gives students a chance to immerse themselves in a Spanish-speaking environment, BOSP has not offered even a summer seminar in Spain in recent years, much less a quarter-long program.

“I decided to study in Madrid this winter because I have been waiting for Stanford to open a program in Spain ever since I came here,” Alison Buki ‘08 wrote in an email to The Daily. “I’m a senior now so I’m glad I’ll have the opportunity to study abroad in the Madrid program.”

For other students, Spain is simply the location that can best satisfy and enhance their particular interests.

“When I heard Stanford in Madrid was opening, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to finish studying in Spain as I have always wanted to,” Marina Scannell ‘08 wrote in an email to The Daily. “I’m also a flamenco dancer, which is why I am so enthusiastic about spending so much time in Spain and learning about the culture, the language and so forth.”