Morgan Williams-Franklin
Get to Know Us!
A monthly showcase of the amazing staff who make the International Center a place where the UF community meets all its international goals!
Morgan Williams-Franklin
Morgan Williams-Franklin is a member of our intrepid team of Study Abroad Advisors, here at UFIC, helping send our Global Gators abroad for transformative scholastic experiences. Growing up just outside Gainesville in Hawthorne, Morgan’s hometown was the kind of place where change happened slowly. “We got the first stoplight when I was twelve!” she recalls. Born on a University of Florida Homecoming weekend, it seems fitting that UF would eventually play such a central role in her life and career.
Music was one of Morgan’s earliest passions. She began playing trumpet in sixth grade, not realizing that a middle school band class would shape the next decade of her life. Taking private lessons with Robert Gary Langford, a former University of Florida band director, helped prepare her for the next step. As a freshman at UF, she auditioned for the Gator Marching Band and earned second chair among 68 trumpet players. The experience was demanding. “The marching band is a part-time job commitment—30 to 35 hours a week of rehearsal, away games, waking up at 7 a.m. for practice for a night game,” she says. Yet the rewards were unforgettable. One memory stands above the rest: “They say you’ll never remember your first game because you’re running on such an adrenaline high running out of the tunnel to 90,000 people cheering and yelling.” Morgan beat that stereotype and remembers the heart-pounding experience in detail!
From 2013 to 2016, Morgan immersed herself in the marching band experience while also performing with the volleyball and basketball pep bands. She traveled with the Gator Basketball Team during Final Four runs and even found herself sharing an elevator ride with legendary coach Billy Donovan.
Band shaped more than her college experience—it shaped her personal life as well. “If you can find true love and beauty at band camp, I guess it’s meant to be forever!” she jokes, but it happened for her, meeting her future husband Alex on the practice field of UF's Marching Band (The Pride of the Sunshine). After becoming engaged, she and Alex found themselves pursuing parallel career opportunities. Suwannee High School and Suwannee Middle School happened to be hiring band directors in the same year, and both landed positions.
Teaching music eventually led Morgan toward a new professional direction. “I realized I needed to pivot to a different kind of work environment, so I took a job at the Office of Admissions,” she explains. While working at UF, she discovered the university’s Educational Excellence Program and pursued an M.A. in Student Personnel in Higher Education.
Today, Morgan helps students prepare for life-changing international experiences. She began advising for Spain and Portugal program opportunities. She now oversees Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UF in Florence, UF in Antarctica, and multi-country opportunities. As she advises students participating in the Germany and Austria programs, she draws on her own deep connections to the region. “I have German citizenship, a German passport, I understand German,” she says. Her experience extends beyond heritage; she also completed her own study abroad experience in Salzburg, Austria, which shares deep historical ties with Germany.
The Salzburg program was especially meaningful. “The UF in Salzburg program was the perfect fit—I got to study music with a Mozarteum trumpet professor who had previously been with the Salzburg and Vienna Philharmonic—really a big deal!” She recalls the learning experience both in the classroom and in the rich historical environment. She once held original Mozart manuscripts, “and the entire program does a weekend in Vienna, which is one of my favorite cities I’ve ever been to,” she remembers, “We also got to hold some of the music instruments at the Belvedere Museum.”
Her connection to Germany began long before college. Every summer, her family visited her grandparents in the small town of Scheßlitz. For years, those trips centered on family rather than tourism. Then, at age fourteen, a four-day visit to Berlin opened her eyes to a different side of Europe. “This must be what people think when I tell them I go to Europe every year. Cities! Culture! Not going to grandma’s house.”
Morgan now advises students participating in UF’s Florence program, the university’s largest summer study abroad opportunity, which typically sends 350 to 400 students abroad each year. One of her favorite memories involves a student who was traveling internationally alone for the first time. Morgan helped her prepare for every aspect of living abroad, and months later they unexpectedly crossed paths in a piazza in Florence. The student invited Morgan to see her art exhibits, which she was working on for her program. “It was so nice to talk with her,” Morgan says. “It was a full-circle moment.”
When asked for travel advice, Morgan offers two guidelines. First: “If you’re abroad and you hear no English, and you see a menu and there’s no English—eat there!” Second: “Plan! Plan so hard! Have a Plan A, B and C, and then assume that all of those will be destroyed and you’ll have to go with the flow!”
Outside of work, Morgan enjoys quieter adventures. She spends time with her two dogs, Molly and Bailey, whom she affectionately calls her “fur kids.” She’s also become an avid audiobook listener. “With a 45-minute commute in the morning, it’s nice to put on a book and enjoy the ride.”
Whether she's sharing travel advice, helping a student prepare for their first international trip, or unexpectedly reconnecting with them in a piazza halfway around the world, Morgan finds joy in helping others experience the same sense of discovery that travel has brought to her own life. Through her work at the UF International Center, she helps students turn the possibility of studying abroad into a reality.
Story by: Terrence Funke
Photos provided by: Morgan Williams-Franklin