LEARNING TO SEE: Global Beginnings Shows First-Semester Students a Whole New World 38 COLBY-SAWYER ALUMNI MAGAZINE Story and Photos by Kate Dunlop Seamans
“WHAT DO YOU SEE?” ASKS THE ART HISTORY PROFESSOR. THE GROUP OF 17 FIRST-YEAR COLBY-SAWYER STUDENTS GAZES TO WHERE HER FINGER POINTS. IT IS 9:30 A.M. ON A MONDAY IN EARLY OCTOBER, AND THEY SQUINT TO TAKE IN THE ENORMOUS WORK. “TELL ME, WHAT IS THE STORY OF THE ART YOU ARE LOOKING AT?” Rachel Keefe, an honors student and soccer player from Maine, correctly identifies the stories of St. Francis, then answers a barrage of follow-up questions. She is rewarded after each with a cheery “Bravissimo!” When the professor asks the students if they have questions, they do: Is that an angel at the top of the image, and what does it represent? And there, is that a man tumbling out of a high window? It is, and soon they see the same piece in a completely new way than when they first laid eyes upon it just half an hour before. The art in question is not a PowerPoint slide in a <strong>Colby</strong>- <strong>Sawyer</strong> classroom but 15th-century frescoes in the Sassetti Chapel of the Basilica di Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. Just 370 miles to the north, 15 <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> first-years are filing into their Pathway class at the historic Château de Pourtalès in Strasbourg, France. They settle in as <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> Professor of Natural Sciences Bill Thomas picks up the theme of Seeing the Light: From Faith to Photon. “It takes a lifetime to learn to see,” Professor Thomas tells the class. “In the womb there are just different shades of darkness; after birth, a baby learns its parents’ faces; then the world gets bigger and bigger. But sight is only part of vision; it’s learned. You can look but not see. Seeing is a challenge, and college is learning to see at a different level. Information has to be unfolded.” These 32 students, accompanied by <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong>’s Assistant Professor of Humanities Ewa Chrusciel in Florence and Professor Thomas, as well as residential staff members at each site, are the pioneers of f Global Beginnings, the Florence, Italy. The 14th c. Ponte Vecchio spans a glowing Arno River at sunset. Have I changed because of this program? It’s probably not something I’ll recognize until I look at it in retrospect. It’s hard to know in the middle, for the same reason you don’t notice when you’re getting taller. It’s day by day. –Alisa Slater, Azerbaijan IN THE BEGINNING <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> created Global Beginnings, in partnership with Customized Educational Programs Abroad and American Institute for Foreign Study, to offer more of its students than ever before the opportunity to study abroad and see the world—and themselves—from a new perspective. Just 175 students have studied away from campus in the last 18 years, in large part because students weren’t able to apply their financial aid to the venture. “One of the breakthroughs with Global Beginnings is that it costs exactly the same as a semester at <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> and students can apply their financial aid,” Vice President and Dean of Faculty Deborah Taylor notes. Fall semester of the first year is the most flexible time in students’ schedules, and bringing them back to campus in the spring helps balance enrollment by filling spots created by mid-year graduations and transfers. Faculty and staff across campus united to work through the countless details that arose in putting the program together. “In true <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> fashion, everyone just rolled up their sleeves and did it,” says Vice President Taylor. Global Beginnings is expected to continue on an ongoing basis, though destinations may change. “We certainly have a dream and are thinking about the infrastructure we need to manage this moving forward, particularly as we plan for Global Beginnings to be only one piece of a larger picture of international study,” says Vice President Taylor. MEETING ON CAMPUS college’s largest study- study study- The Global Beginnings students, representing six countries and eight states, arrived on the <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> campus August 18 for two weeks of orientation. The time was hectic. They met the <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong> professors and residential staff members who would accompany each group, and they started language, l writing and Pathways courses. There were also magic m moments that t tied the group together toge with gossamer bonds bond that only strength- ened over the course of the semester. s WWang Yu Jia from Chin China recalls the group doin doing homework at Colb <strong>Colby</strong> Farm together, liste listening to student Dav David Hart play his gui- tar, and swimming in a lak lake at midnight. Together, the stu- de dents tackled sessions of Rosetta Stone lan- gguage instruction, At left: Angela Uberer, a local professor of art history hired by <strong>Colby</strong>-<strong>Sawyer</strong>, tells the tr tried to demystify BBlackboard, and took cooking classe classes to prepare for a story of the Florentine art she shares with students. college ccollege experience that did not include a dining hall. WINTER 2010 39
Change language