SAS Voyage Blog

When Courtney Kaiser and Justin Cagaoan sat down at a corner table in the Garden Lounge to write letters Tuesday evening, they weren’t journaling to their families and friends. Rather, their letters were going to elementary school students in the United States.

As part of Semester At Sea’s Vicarious Voyage program, Kaiser and Cagaoan are each paired with a K-12 classroom in the U. S. and will be corresponding with the students throughout the voyage in the hopes of enhancing global education. Kaiser is working with 16 sixth grade students from Deerfield Community School in Deerfield, New Hampshire while Cagaoan is teamed with 25 second grade students from Groveland Elementary School in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

In a tradition nearly as old as Semester at Sea, the Spring 2010  Sea Olympics were declared open in a ceremony that featured costumes, banners, song and spirited  banter between participants.

The day-long celebration, usually held about halfway through the voyage, provides an opportunity for everyone to enjoy a day filled with fun, food, games, competition and a much needed respite from academic rigors.

In 1958, a nine-year-old Leigh Grossman left Pullman, Washington with her family as they traveled to New Dehli, India for her father’s one-year academic sabbatical. That one year turned into a ten-year international experience that had a profound effect on the rest of her life.

Today, Dr. Grossman is a professor of Pediatric Medicine and Chief of the Pediatric Infectious Disease Division at the University of Virginia (U.Va.) School of Medicine, where she also is the Assistant Dean for International Programs.  Until recently, she also served as the university’s Vice Provost for International Affairs.

Long an advocate for the value of international travel and education, she is responsible for bringing a medical team from the University of Virginia to the Spring 2010 voyage of Semester at Sea for a 30-day elective. The team joined the voyage in Shanghai, China and will remain through India.

Urban  growth in China has created tremendous demand for housing and retail space.  The resultant construction of new high-rise structures frequently has come at the expense of established and often historic buildings and neighborhoods..
In Beijing, decades of development have resulted in the demolition of many of the city’s traditional housing areas or Hutongs. Semester at Sea voyagers participating in a field  program to Beijing had the opportunity to visit and have dinner with a family living in one of the preserved Hutong areas.