Over the past few weeks, you have heard a lot about the community aboard the MV Explorer and have been able to take a look at a number of events that Voyagers shared together in the early stages of the semester. It has been difficult to showcase our academics though in the opening weeks of the voyage because classes were just beginning and were still in their introductory phase. However, when the students return from Morocco, things will really be in full swing and I hope to be able to introduce you to some of our professors and tell you a little bit about what some of our classes are working on.
I thought it would be good to start off, however, with an introduction to the overall academic
theme of the voyage, Migrations, and our Academic Dean, Professor Reg Garrett. Reg is a Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia. He received his Ph.D. in Biology at the Johns Hopkins University in 1968 and joined the faculty at the University of Virginia later that year. In 1975, he was a Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Vienna, Austria, and in 1976, a visiting scientist in the Department of Genetics, Cambridge University (U.K.). In 1983, Professor Garrett returned to Cambridge and the Department of Genetics as a Thomas Jefferson Visiting Fellow in Downing College and in 2003, he was Professeur Invité at the University of Toulouse (France) and the CNRS Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology.These experiences abroad had a profound affect on Reg. They helped to shape his support for study abroad programs and his interest in making them available to science students. However, he did not become personally involved with Semester at Sea until the spring of 2007. At that time, Reg served as the head of the UVA Academic Advisory Committee, which reviews all UVA academic programs, and he was urged by UVA provost Gene Bloch to take a look at Semester at Sea. Upon visiting the ship and seeing what it had to offer, he was extremely impressed. In his own words, “I fell in love with this ship. The crew was extremely professional and the ISE staff were engaged, committed, and willing to move in new directions.”
Reg was offered and then accepted the position of Academic Dean for this semester’s voyage, and he began preparations early on to implement some of his academic aims, such as bringing science courses to non-science majors and creating study abroad opportunities for science majors. To that effect, the Spring 2009 academic program includes required courses for science majors so that they can enjoy the exceptional opportunities presented by Semester at Sea and maintain satisfactory progress towards their degree requirements. The theme of the voyage is Migrations. It’s science based but really runs across all academic disciplines. According to Reg, it deals mainly with the early story of human dispersion but the courses also address a number of contemporary problems that relate to Migrations.
In our floating campus, Semester at Sea Voyagers can actually observe firsthand the courses of migrations and the modern ramifications that manifest themselves in contemporary religions,
politics, and cultures. Through their field studies, which account for 20% of their grades, students will compare and contrast what they observe and bring their experiences back with them to the ship and analyze them. As Reg said to me when discussing the innate value of Semester at Sea in comparison to other study abroad options, “SAS offers a comparative advantage not seen elsewhere and through the breadth of the academic program, students gain depth in their understanding of the global world.”Photos by SAS Photographer John Weakley
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