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September 15, 2005

Pitt explores alternative to Semester at Sea

Pitt is looking into options for replacing the Semester at Sea (SAS) program.

Provost James Maher provided an update to Senate Council this week at the request of University Senate President Irene Frieze, who said that SAS was the most frequently discussed subject on campus this summer.

In June, Pitt ended its 24-year relationship with the Institute for Shipboard Education, which administers Semester at Sea. The two parties reached an agreement whereby the University would offer credits to students who sail on any of three voyages, including the recently completed summer voyage, and the fall and spring voyages.

However, under the agreement, the University is no longer the program’s academic sponsor and all Pitt affiliates who sail on SAS voyages must do so as private contractors with ISE and not as representatives of the University.

(See June 9 and June 23 University Times.)

“As you’ll remember when I reported last on this at the June [Senate Council] meeting, I had asked the committee of faculty that had been formed by Arts and Sciences Dean John Cooper and University Center for International Studies director William Brustein to review the academic program at Semester at Sea, originally,” Maher told Senate Council this week.

“At the last committee meeting in May, I asked them to do some thinking about what our options would be to replace in our programs, and for our students and our faculty, what we’ve been getting out of being part of Semester at Sea.”

The committee has made some suggestions that Pitt is considering and is seeking faculty input on these ideas, Maher said. “There are three in particular,” Maher continued. “One is a real program that would basically replace Semester at Sea if we decided to adopt it. It is called the Program for Trans-Regional Education (PTRE),” a structured semester-long, multi-site learning abroad experience that would be led by Pitt faculty.

A draft outline of how that proposed program could be set up is available at the web site www.ucis.pitt.edu/ptre to interested Pitt faculty. That site is accessible only to the Pitt community through the University’s virtual private network, Maher said, “to keep the ideas from being taken elsewhere while we decided what we want to do.”

Maher told Senate Council, “It looks to me to be a very plausible program that would involve a semester-long experience for our students and which would involve significant engagement in several regions of the world under the leadership of faculty from the University. I invite all of you to go to that web site, look up the program and give William Brustein the benefit of your thinking on the way that program is going to be run.”

(Brustein’s e-mail address is brustein@ucis.pitt.edu.)

Should Pitt approve PTRE, the program could be up and running in 18-24 months, Maher said.

Secondly, the committee recommended that, in the interim, Pitt identify interested faculty and have them prepare for that program through the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), an organization endorsed by Brustein, Maher reported. “That organization is well-known for its work on international education, and it sponsors international faculty development seminars that offer faculty the opportunity to experience short-term intensive international experiences with updates on global issues in regions shaping world events,” Maher said.

Thirdly, discussions are underway between Pitt officials and officials at the California Maritime Academy, a branch of the California State University System, Maher said.

“This maritime academy actually runs a ship that could comfortably house 300 faculty and students,” Maher said. “There are discussions about whether the University of Pittsburgh might want to design a program there for itself that would make use of that ship on a lease arrangement, one voyage at a time.”

Kathleen deWalt, director of Pitt’s Latin American Studies program, and Annagene Yucas, director of the Study Abroad Office, are representing Pitt in those discussions, Maher said.

“So all three of those activities are going on in parallel, and both UCIS and the committee that’s designing the PTRE are very interested in getting any input that any faculty would care to send them,” the provost said.

—Peter Hart

Filed under: Feature,Volume 38 Issue 2

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