Hi all,
Our latest news -- Simon has taken a job as a faculty member on a program called "Semester at Sea" for the Spring semester. The program, which is affiliated with the University of Virginia, bills itself as a "floating university". Between the end of January and the middle of May we'll be in the company of around 670 undergraduate students from North America, along with around 25 or so other faculty, some adult passengers, and a number of staff, to live and travel on a cruise ship (see right) for 100 days.
We'll join the ship in Nassau, in the Bahamas, on January 30. From there, we'll visit 13 different ports in 10 countries during a round-the-world sailing. Days at sea will be teaching days (Simon has three courses to teach). And then in each of the ports the program offers a number of different side trips. We’re planning to join a few of those (and Simon has to lead a half dozen). There’ll also be time for us to do a few things by ourselves, and with others we meet on the ship.
Some of the things we're most looking forward to include:
- meeting and spending time with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is acting as a Distinguished Lecturer in Residence for the entire length of the program;
- a planned trip into the Amazon to meet with our friend Eve Bratman during our stay in Brazil;
- catching up with our friends Holger and Andrea, along with their little ones Zoë and Noah, in Cape Town, South Africa;
- some research interviews that Anne-Claire has planned in India and Thailand, on the issue of post-tsunami reconstruction; and
- an overland trip Anne-Claire is organizing in Southeast Asia with her brother Guillaume.
We'll post semi-regular updates here while we're away, along with links to pictures. We'll also have good e-mail access while on the ship, so please keep in touch. We're looking forward to sharing the experience with you.
AC and Simon
