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Honors Study Abroad! Summer 2018

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Honors College
Honors College

  • Prague's most famous graffiti area
  • Ms. Grazyna Staniszewska who was the only woman at the Round Table negotiations which led to free elections in Poland in 1989, spoke right after Lech Walesa (first President of Poland and leader of the Solidarity Movement), and is generally a part of Polish history. She was a member of the Polish Sejm (as of 1989), then a Senator, and then a member of the European Parliament.
  • Group at Dover Castle and Hope Hill
  • Kiev. This picture is on Independence Square where both the 2004 Orange Revolution and 2014 Euro Maidan Revolution (Revolution of Dignity). The students are pictured with our local contact, Inna, and our guide, Galina. Inna was part of the protests and had family on both sides during the Euro Maidan Revolution. Galina was a journalist who was right in the middle of all of the protests and witnessed history firsthand. A few nights later, we actually had dinner in a speakeasy below our feet. It's hidden under the square and it's called The Last Barricade. The theme of the restaurant is revolution so the password to get in was the Ukrainian phrase "always fight".

 

This summer twenty-one students from the Honors College studied abroad, traveling to Italy and Ireland, Costa Rica and the Czech Republic, and Spain to Slovakia. 

The “Grand Tour” included eleven honors students and three faculty members—Dr. Doug Marshall (Sociology, and also Director of Honors Education) along with Dr. Leslie Gregoricka (Anthropology) and Dr. Ellen Harrington (English) for an expansive tour of European archeology, literature, culture, and history.  Students spent the first week of June in Rome and Florence to see, among other things, the Colosseum, the Uffizi Gallery, and Pompeii. The next week took them to France where they explored Notre Dame and enjoyed strolls through Paris and Versailles.  Finally they traveled to London, England, learning about cholera and Westminster Abbey.

Three other honors students went along with Dr. Nicholas Gossett (Modern and Classical Languages and Literature) to what he calls “a fairly often misunderstood part of the world,” Eastern Europe, in particular the Czech Republic, Poland and the Ukraine. The USA in Eastern Europe program provided students with a background in the history and culture of these nations while allowing them to analyze, in person, the current situation in each one of the places visited. While in Prague, they studied and met the first recognized female graffiti artist in the Czech Republic, Sany. When in Poland, the group visited Warsaw on the anniversary of the first free elections in Poland (June 04, 1989), and heard a lecture by Ms. Grazyna Staniszewska, the only woman at the Round Table negotiations that led to free elections in Poland.

Honors student Hope Hill at first believed that for her an abroad trip was an impossible dream, but found that USA and Honors College funding made the Grand Tour possible for her.  She celebrates “expanding my intellectual and cultural world views” along with heightened “awareness of the world making me both a better American and international citizen.”  Sam Michlowitz “can’t wait to explore the world and discover new things,” and found that study abroad through the Honors College at USA “introduced me to my love of travel.”

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