Welcome back to the SAS Voyage Blog. Sorry it has been a few days since the last post but it will probably be difficult to put up new stories while we are in port. The MV Explorer is currently right off the Rock of Gibraltar, just a bit behind schedule as we were unable to refuel earlier today. We are going to give it another try tomorrow morning and we will be on our way to Casablanca as soon as possible. I will be updating the SAS Twitter Account with more real time updates so if you are not a subscriber to that yet, please visit us here.Today was Morocco Day aboard the ship. Voyagers participated in an extended Global Studies session this morning as well as special classes during the day that focused on Morocco and travel in general. We capped off the evening with our logistical pre-port and upon our arrival in Casablanca, we will receive our diplomatic briefing that will focus on the current political situation in the country and detailed advice for the places Voyagers may be traveling to.
As I explained in an earlier post, an interport lecturer always sails with us to our next destination to help contribute to the academic and cultural presentations given on the next port. Jack Rusenko, our expert-in-residence for Morocco has been a part of Semester at Sea’s visits to Morocco for a number of years.
In Morocco, Jack serves as President of Global Education and President of the George Washington Academy, a K-12 school with American accreditation that serves the area of Casablanca. There are about 500 students, composed of children from Morocco, the United States, and about two dozen other countries.
His first contact with SAS came in 1994. At the time, he was working with Global Education, to help bring and expand the Internet in Morocco. While the ship was in port in Casablanca, Jack became acquainted with the Executive Dean (coincidentally, it was Les McCabe, the current Executive Dean and President of the Institute for Shipboard Education) and he officially joined SAS as an interport lecturer in a 1995 voyage to Morocco. This is Jack’s fourth time participating in an SAS voyage in that capacity.
A lot of his work is aimed at trying to bridge the Arab and Western cultural divide and in his opinion, “it will never be overcome unless significant numbers of people from the two cultures meet each other.” As a truly global campus, Semester at Sea is uniquely able to introduce Voyagers to peoples and cultures around the world, and the impact is felt by both Voyagers and those that they encounter. When I asked Jack about the tangible results that a Semester at Sea visit can have, he told me about some of the Moroccan students that have traveled with him as interport students on previous SAS voyages. Two became Fulbright Scholars, one is now an official with the World Bank, and another is working his way up the diplomatic ranks in Morocco, and they have all pointed to SAS as a positive contributor to their respective global educations and something that continues to have a positive impact on them.
Please check back in tomorrow for some student reactions to their time in Spain as well as an interview with Professor Reg Garrett, our Academic Dean.
Photo #2 by SAS Photographer John Weakley
Posts
