2025 | Namur-Lafayette: an academic agreement bringing the two cities closer

In 2022, the University of Namur and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette signed an agreement allowing students from both institutions to take part in a one-semester exchange programme. This collaboration was extended and adapted in 2024 to broaden opportunities and further strengthen student mobility.

A new milestone will be reached in the 2025-2026 academic year, when the University of Namur welcomes a student from Lafayette, William Lejeune, for the second semester. The programme allows students to immerse themselves in a different university culture, discover a new French-speaking region, and broaden their academic horizons.

These exchanges represent the direct legacy of the first Belgian teachers sent to Louisiana in the 1970s. Within the academic sphere, they extend the original purpose of the programme: encouraging encounters, supporting the learning of French, and fostering mutual understanding between the two communities.

The Namur mural in Lafayette, the road network in the area of La Sablière, and the academic exchanges between the universities of both cities all testify to the vitality of an agreement that continues, year after year, to reinvent itself.