Friday, August 26, 2011: More than 500 undergraduate students, faculty, and staff of Semester at Sea (SAS), the nation's premier shipboard program for global education, departed Montreal, Quebec today for a 111-day voyage around the world to 12 countries. The MV Explorer passenger ship that serves as the floating campus of Semester at Sea pulled away from the Iberville Passenger Terminal at 5 p.m. with hundreds of friends and family members looking on. This is the first time a voyage has departed from Montreal.

The Fall 2011 voyage is the 107th for the SAS program. After departing Montreal the ship will travel to Casablanca, Morocco; Tema, (Accra), Ghana; Cape Town, South Africa; Port Louis, Mauritius; Chennai, India; Penang, Malaysia; Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam; Hong Kong / Shanghai, China; Kobe / Yokohama, Japan; Hilo, Hawaii; Puntarenas, Costa Rica: through the Panama Canal; and Havana, Cuba (upon the receipt of a travel license) before returning to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on December 13. Stay current with the voyage on the SAS Voyage Blog.

August 25, 2011: The Institute for Shipboard Education and Semester at Sea program are monitoring Hurricane Irene and the potential air travel delays it may cause some SAS Fall 2011 participants. The weather system is not expected to impact the Fall 2011 voyage's sailing from Montreal along the St. Lawrence Seaway and tomorrow's 5 p.m. departure remains unchanged. In addition, please be advised that due to the earthquake in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this week, the ISE telephone system is not functioning properly. If your travel plans have been impacted by the hurricane, please call our offices toll-free at 800.854.0195 and leave message with your updated arrival information. We will confirm that we have received your message. As well, you may email your updated travel itinerary to [This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots; you need JavaScript enabled to view it]

Stapleton Roy, the former U.S. Ambassador to China, will be among several of the nation's top business, political and educational leaders to board the MV Explorer to speak at the Institute for Shipboard Education's Forum on Global Engagement August 21-25. The four-day Forum will take place aboard the MV Explorer, the state-of-the-art ship that serves as the floating campus for the Semester at Sea global study-abroad program. The entire Forum will be captured in podcasts and interviews on the FGE 2011 Blog. >>Read More.

July 24, 2011: U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria James B. Warlick, Jr. greeted the more than 770 students and faculty members arriving in Varna, the country's third largest city, knowing their education about this Virginia-sized nation on the eastern edge of the European Union was just beginning. Warlick knows that the country with a Cyrillic alphabet, a long history of settlement by Thracians, Romans and Turks, and a port on the Black Sea, is often mistaken for the country in South America that also starts with a B and ends with an A: Bolivia. His presentation Saturday morning to the students gathered in the ship's student Union touched on serious national concerns, but Warlick also gave them an upbeat description of the country's highlights, hoping that when their ship, the MV Explorer, left port four days later these might remember Bulgaria and become ambassadors in their own right. Read More >>.

The Institute for Shipboard Education has launched a new ISE Blog in addition to the SAS Current Voyage Blog it has maintained since 2009. This site will feature posts from the Institute's staff based in Charlottesville, VA, as well as from field personnel around the United States. It will offer insight to anyone interested in how Semester at Sea voyages and Enrichment Voyages are planned and carried out.

You can subscribe to updates from the ISE voyages blog here. Join the hundreds of other people who are already taking advantage of his opportunity to see behind the scenes of this long-standing global education program.

June 29, 2011: The Institute for Shipboard Education (ISE) continues to monitor the political situation in Athens, Greece. Local contacts report demonstrations have been isolated; however, there is widespread disruption to transportation due to general strikes, which are expected to continue until tomorrow. Future strikes are possible. In consultation with the U.S. State Department, our private risk assessment firm, and local sources, it is expected that conditions will normalize by the time the SAS Summer 2011 voyage calls on Greece next month. ISE will continue to monitor local conditions and will identify an alernative port should conditions worsen.

June 17, 2011: The 106th voyage of Semester at Sea departed Nassau, Bahamas today as scheduled. The voyage includes a learning community of 674 undergraduate students, 9 postgraduate students, 7 lifelong learners, 36 faculty, and 34 staff. The summer voyage will visit eight countries in the Mediterranean and North Africa. Stay connected to the voyage through the current voyage blog, which will feature updates, videos, slideshows, profiles, and more.

A world of cultural sharing and exploration awaits travelers aboard the Institute for Shipboard Education's upcoming Enrichment Voyage, which will sail for several days along the Amazon River during its three-week voyage through the Caribbean and South America from December 22, 2011 to January 12, 2012. This year's voyage will celebrate the Christmas holiday in San Juan, Puerto Rico and will make its special passage through the Amazon River to celebrate the New Year.

June 2, 2011: The Institute for Shipboard Education (ISE) is monitoring the recent E. coli outbreak in Europe in consultation with its medical advisers and contacts in the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization. Currently, no impact is expected on the upcoming Semester at Sea Summer 2011 voyage. In addition to requisite SAS health and safety briefings, voyage staff and medical experts will advise participants on safe food choices prior to arrival in each port-of-call and alternative ship provisioning sources will be identified. Food storage and preparation procedures aboard the MV Explorer are subject to regular U.S. Public Health inspections. For additional health and safety practices, please see our website.

May 20, 2011: The 105th voyage of Semester at Sea, the first short-term offering in its nearly 50-year history, departed Nassau, Bahamas today as scheduled. The voyage includes a learning community of 341 undergraduates, 29 lifelong learners, 29 faculty, and 33 staff and will explore a curriculum focused on the United Nation's Millenial Development Goals. Stay connected to the voyage through the current voyage blog, which will feature updates, videos, slideshows, profiles, and more.