Travel Studies
During the summer prior to their third year, all Scholars are invited to participate in a carefully designed five-week foreign travel/study experience. See below for details on each trip.
2010 structured Foreign Travel Study trips slide show:
Service Learning Expedition to Tanzania: Unlike a conventional tour, scholars were primarily responsible for designing, planning, and leading this expedition. Working as a team, the students designed their own adventure- identifying appropriate cultural immersion treks and sites for service learning work, developing a reading list, and identifying important questions for inquiry. While in-country, scholars arranged travel, food and lodging, communicated with in-country contacts, coordinated the service-learning project, and led discussions on shared topics of inquiry. By the end of the expedition students were prepared to safely conduct independent travel in Tanzania whether going on safari, participating in other culture immersion treks, soaking up the sun in Zanzibar, or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. This trip was led by Justin Reich (Jefferson Scholar CLAS ’99, GSAS ’00).
View Jesse Duke’s original (higher resolution) version of the video or the YouTube version.
Culture of London Past and Present: During a period of intensive cultural exploration, students attended the theater regularly; visited museums and monuments; heard lectures from distinguished British and American scholars; read the literature of London and its social history; studied the urban environment; and engaged in group discussions at Regent’s College. The boundaries between classroom and the surrounding world were weakened visibly. Moving throughout London became an activity linking academic and non-academic pursuits, thought and feeling, nationality and internationalism. U.Va. English professors Michael Levenson and Clare Kinney lead Scholars in this tutorial.
Beautiful China and Beyond: This year’s trip to China trip started in Shanghai, where scholars saw ancient treasures as well as modern wonders, including the Shanghai Expo. They proceeded to China’s most beautiful mountain, Huangshan, located in one of China’s most cultured rural settings. Next they traveled to Beijing, where they walked through the Forbidden City and took a day trip to the most spectacular part of the Great Wall. From Beijing, they traveled to Xi’an, famous for the Terracotta Army. Their final destination was Tibet, where they spent time in Lhasa and camped out in the countryside. They had free-ranging group discussions with students in Shanghai and Beijing. In Beijing they also visited a library for the children of migrant laborers supported by Dream Corps, a Chinese NGO with strong ties to U.Va. In Xi’an and in Tibet they visited typical rural areas to get a sense of how life goes on. Combining the beautiful and the necessary granted the scholars a sense of China’s diversity. Led by U.Va. Professor of Politics (Comparative Gov’t and International Relations) and East Asia Center faculty member Brantly Womack.
Following the structured program, each Scholar has the opportunity to undertake an independently designed inquiry into a topic of personal interest. These projects involve additional overseas travel and research, and the Scholars present their results to the Foundation upon their return.
“My Jefferson Scholars independent summer travel experience was one of the most profound cultural excursions I have ever undertaken. I can now claim that I have: traveled the canals of Venice; hiked in the snow capped Swiss Alps; touched the Berlin Wall; attended one of Mozart’s operas in Prague; toured a Hungarian Soviet statue park; swum in the hot spring baths of Budapest; paid a visit to Dracula’s castle in Transylvania; climbed to the summit of Mt. Olympus; stood atop the ancient Acropolis; spent several days on the Greek island thought to have been Atlantis…and everything in between. The opportunities which the Jefferson Scholars Program has afforded me have enhanced my undergraduate learning in ways I never dreamed possible.” –Chris Belyea (JS ’10)
