A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E - Colby-Sawyer College

“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 Colby-
Sawyer 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 Colby-Sawyer first-years
are filing into their Pathway class at the historic Château de
Pourtalès in Strasbourg, France. They settle in as Colby-Sawyer
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 Colby-Sawyer’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
Colby-Sawyer 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 Colby-Sawyer 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 Colby-Sawyer 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 Colby-Sawyer campus August
18 for two weeks of orientation. The time was hectic. They
met the Colby-Sawyer 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 Colby 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 Colby-Sawyer, 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.
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