SEMESTER IN GREECE PROGRAM

      In the 1990s Mari and I ran a Semester in Greece program for our college, The College of St. Rose in Albany NY. I thought you might be interested in how it looked and went. It was based in a small city on the extreme eastern end of Crete named Sitia where we already had some good Greek friends. We ran the program for three consecutive fall semesters. Because of the price differential between America and Greece, we were able to offer the entire semester, apart from travel, for the same cost as a semester on campus. We averaged 15 students a semester. Mari and I spent the summers just before the fall semesters living in this same city, so we got to know many people and our way around.

    We rented a small villa on the edge of town with four students to an apartment.  Each had its own living room, kitchen, and bath. The students shopped and cooked for themselves. The villa was within a half-hour’s walking distance from town. We were within walking distance to the beaches and stores, etc. The local folks were kind and happy to have us as part of their community.

            The core of the program was the course work, which included a double credit Greek Language and Culture course, involving a weekly Greek dinner fixed by the students, daily Greek lessons, and twice-weekly dance lessons. The language class met daily. The students chose three other courses from: Greek Art, novels by Nikos Kazantzakis a famous Cretan author, Philosophy of Education, and Ancient Greek Philosophy. I taught most of these latter courses, while Mari taught the Greek Art course.

            Needless to say, the students especially enjoyed mixing with the local people in the cafes and stores, along with the daily trip to the beach. Night life was pretty serious, so we had to keep on them rather carefully. They did their own laundry, which was quite different from home – by hand, without machines. By and large we all devoted afternoons to study, with classes held in the mornings. All in all, the students got along well with each other and the local people very well. The young women were especially attractive to the local young men, and vice versa. As “parents” Mari and I tried to strike a balance between supervision and freedom. It seemed to work out pretty well.

            In many ways the highpoints of the semester were the trips to historical sites. We did a week-long Minoan tour to the ruins on Crete and Santorini, another week-long Ancient Greek tour to Olympia and Delphi, and we spent the final week of the program in Athens touring museums and the Parthenon. We had a good friend who ran a large, successful tour-bus company and we travelled by bus mostly, but obviously sometimes travel by ship was also necessary. It was a great thrill and privilege to sail the Mediterranean. With daily lectures, of course.

            Perhaps the highpoint was an unexpected opportunity to take a four-day
“quick trip” to Egypt, for a surprisingly low price. We went on a first-rate ship, with all meals included, to Alexandria and the next day to Cairo and the Pyramids, then back again to Crete. The students paid their own way, and we had no mishaps. To be sure, Alexandria seemed like a place out of the movies, and it made Mari and I pretty nervous walking through the narrow streets of the bazars responsible for the safety of the students. A young man with a black eye patch, who called himself “Sammy Davis Jr.” offered to be our guide. It all worked out very well.

It was a fantastic thing to go inside the Great Pyramid and see some of the tombs.

            The whole semester was, of course, a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all the students and we had no difficulty recruiting students for the next semester. At first a good number of the faculty were suspicious that the whole program was a boon-doggle on our part to be able to live in Greece. After they met the students who had been on the trip, however, the mood changed, and we had full faculty support. We, in addition to several of the students, have returned to Sitia several times. One of the students actually married one of the young men there and has raised her family there. The whole experience was a wonderful gift to both of us.