This past Winter Term, more than 700 students and 50 faculty members traveled out of the country for 24 different study abroad courses around the world.

Updates about the various international courses were posted on the Isabella Cannon Centre’s Web site throughout the month.

This year’s courses covered material from a wide range of academic subjects, including everything from business to biology to history. A course in Guatemala included a service component where students helped build a Habitat for Humanity house.

Two new courses were offered this year, and both received good reports at the end of January. In a literature and communications class called The Call of South Africa: Models and Movements of Protests, Images and Texts of Healing, students studied the culture, history and literature of South African protest movements, and in Paris: Capital of Modernity course, students spent 20 days living in Paris and studying French art history.

Judging from the length of the waiting list, courses in Australia and New Zealand remained the most popular this year. Courses in these two nations covered ecotourism, aboriginal studies, business and the environment. A class in Ghana about West African history and culture was another popular choice as well. The number of applications to London, however, has decreased.

Overall this year, a shift in study abroad applications began to emerge with the number of semester-long applications increasing and the number of Winter Term applications remaining the same. This shift may be becausestudents are more well-traveled than ever before.

Next year the Isabella Cannon Centre hopes to expand the number of Winter Term study abroad courses to 26-30 different classes and add Sweden, Sri Lanka, Russia and Mexico to the list of locations.
More information about Winter Term 2008 will be released this April, when the application process will begin again.

Some Winter Term classes experienced problems

As in any study abroad experience, certain unforeseen international incidents occurred throughout January that inconvenienced or threatened to inconvenience the Elon groups traveling outside the country.

During the last week of January, erratic weather spread across northern Europe, causing a delay in train transportation for the course called Cathedral: An Introduction to Structures of Power.

Outside circumstances caused changes to the course Conducting Business in the Pacific Rim. The group had planned on spending eight days in the Philippines, but after a State Department warning issued two weeks prior to departure, the International Office made changes in the course itinerary to keep the class out of the unstable region.

Other incidents occurred abroad during Winter Term as well. James Schlucter was seriously injured and hospitalized for two days in London in an alcohol-related incident on Jan. 8.

The Isabella Cannon Centre also had to investigate an e-mail scam involving the France Art History class. In attempts to clear up the hoax, a number of e-mails were sent back and forth between Elon’s study abroad office and an unnamed individual who had made drug-related accusations against the group in Paris.

News Editor: Alyse Knorr - 02/08/07