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Study Break
Out of the classroom, but not out of class
Posted October 17, 2004
Fall break is still a time for many
hardworking upperclass students -- not to mention professors -- to
catch up on sleep, but faculty members teaching first-year seminars are
increasingly using this "downtime" as an intensive learning experience.
Several of the First-Year
Experience's 37 seminars take trips at some point during the academic
year, with 10 of them traveling during fall break. Trips ranged
from a sports medicine clinic in Cleveland to a Monsanto plant in St.
Louis, a tour of German Cities, and excursions to Paris and Mexico City.
Women's Worlds: Gender in Global Perspective Women/Gender
Studies professor Trisha Franzen (center) and her students atop the
world's third-largest pyramid, Teotihuacan (Pyramid of the Sun), north
of Mexico City. "The trip was a wonderful cultural learning
experience," says first-year student Sarah Morris(at left, in
yellow). "It was both
fun and interesting to compare the cultures of Mexico's society to those
of the United States.
Photo courtesy of
Trisha Franzen
Art and the Environment take a interdisciplinary approach
to integrating two disciplines that the unimaginative often assume are
unrelated. Taught by art history professor Bille Wickre and
biologist Doug White, the group creates an original
environmental art installation each fall. Here, the group enjoys
an art display near Frank Lloyd Wright's famous "Falling Water" home.
Photo courtesy of
Doug White
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Puerto Rico: Boricua to Colonial West Side Story and Jennifer
Lopez. (Below) Students take in the view from the balcony of
Serrallés Castle in Ponce. The Serrallés family accumulated their
wealth from the rum industry and used the profits to build their home
overlooking the city's port. (Above) First year students Caitlan
Smith and Tequila Tomkin (above)shave a real hands-on experience with
actual artifacts left behind by colonial Spanish soldiers at Fort
Cristóbal located in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Smith describes
the trip as "an amazing expirence ... I don't think I could even begin
to explain it."
Photos by Tracey Howard
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Innovations in Imaging First-year students Sara Galante and Jessica Trieskey
were photographed while photographing
one of the most photographed places on the planet, the Niagara
River. Mathematics/computer science professor Dave Reimann then
took the group to Rochester, New York, to visit the George Eastman House,
home of the founder of the Eastman Kodak Company and now
one of the world's best photographic history museums.
Photo by Dave
Reimann
Culture,
Connections and Communities: From Albion to France -- and Back
Albion College students add to, and reap the benefits of, the city of
Albion's active jumelage (sister city) relationship with
Noisy-le-Roi, a city near Paris and Versailles. "This trip helped
me learn more about French culture and gave me an opportunity to learn
about study abroad programs I can do in France through Albion College,"
says first-year French major Tracey Cook. "It also was very cool because
I got more comfortable speaking to people and explaining things or
solving problems in a language and culture that was not my own." Photo by
Tracey Cook |
