Twelve Students Return from Study Abroad in Paris

From May 13 to June 24, twelve King’s students joined Professor Henry Bleattler, Ph.D., Chair of the Media, Culture, and the Arts program, and other faculty in Paris for the 2017 Europa International Venture. During this six-week program, students attended classes with King’s faculty, toured some of the finest museums in the world, and experienced life in Paris.

The King’s Europa Venture is currently the only International Ventures trip that focuses on a Western country. This is the fourth trip to France for the Europa Venture, which in 2016 took place in Italy. “When we began considering an International Venture to France, the question was whether it should be more missions oriented or more educational,” Bleattler said. “It’s developed, in a very Kingsian way, to ‘study abroad.’” The Venture gives students an opportunity to study with faculty of King’s in a major European city that has had a historically significant role in the development of the West.

For the first three weeks, students met for two hours of class with Bleattler each morning, four days a week, and then spent the afternoons as a group visiting museums or historical sites that aligned with their morning studies.

This combination of lessons and visits made for a powerful learning experience. Olivia Ronald (MCA Dec. ’17) said that for her, visiting St. Denis Cathedral with the team was a life-changing experience. “St. Denis is the first huge Gothic cathedral,” she said, then laughed and made a minute correction to the statement: “Well, almost Gothic.” She said that Bleattler explained the significance of the building and its architecture to the team beforehand, but the lesson went even deeper. “It was not as if he just gave us a bunch of information and then let us look around. When we got to the Cathedral, there was this moment where Professor Bleattler had us wait in a dark hallway for a few minutes, till the light was just right, and then had us walk around a corner, and we saw the sun streaming in through all those ancient stained glass windows, and it was absolutely beautiful.” For Olivia, this moment captured the spirit of the Paris Venture. It is not just about learning facts and history; it’s about learning to see the world in a different, truer way. She said that at the moment she understood more deeply a profound theological truth: “God is light, and that’s something the architects of these cathedrals really understood.”

In the second half of the trip, other faculty members joined the team to teach week-long classes on their specialties. Associate Professor of English and Humanities Alissa Wilkinson taught about American writers in Paris between the World Wars; Associate Professor of English and Film Bearden Coleman taught a course on French film; and Art Historian in Residence Daniel Siedell taught students about 19th and 20th century French art. “It’s very much the same attitude we use while teaching in New York, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Bleattler says. “There, instead of simply telling students about ancient Babylonian art, we go see it. That’s exactly the same way we approach the Europa Venture.”

One of the objectives of the trip is for students to fully experience life in a different culture. To that end, the team lives in fully furnished apartments instead of dorms, and students go grocery shopping and cook for themselves. Janet Cho, an international student at King’s, says, “There was a really good balance of work and downtime that allowed us to accumulate experiences on our own as well. Some of my favorite pastimes during the trip was simply going to a Monoprix and getting groceries, going to see a local band play at a jazz club, and working on my novel by the Seine, and just encompassing myself with the local culture.”

Students visited a medieval art museum, an archeological dig near Notre Dame Cathedral, and various other historic sites during their time in Paris. As part of the trip, each student received a membership pass to the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay, so they could visit these museums at any time. In addition, the team took day trips out of Paris, visiting historically significant locations such as the cathedral in Chartres; the gardens and palace at Versailles; and Claude Monet’s home, studio, and water lily pond in Giverny, where they took a bicycle tour of the region. At the beginning of June, they travelled to Bayeux to see the Bayeux Tapestry, and some of the students stayed for a few extra days to visit the site of the D-Day landings at Omaha Beach.

King’s takes this time seriously; during the Europa Venture, students can earn six hours of credit towards their degree. Students take the trip seriously as well. This summer, the team included one student who chose to go to King’s because of the Europa Venture in Paris.

Bleattler says that this year’s program was a definite success, despite the record high temperatures in Paris during the last week (hitting 100 degrees one day in a city where most homes don’t have air conditioning). He says, “The old cliché that your life is changed when you return from overseas travel definitely holds some truth.” He has observed over the years that after returning from overseas study, students have a degree of confidence that they previously did not have. He says, “I don’t think necessarily they’ll run out and climb Mt. Everest, but I am sure they’ll be a little more assertive and self-assured about taking risks and trusting their own insight about what lies before them.”

The Europa model of faculty-led study abroad has proven itself successful for the past four summers. “Overseeing this program is a dream come true for me,” Bleattler said. “Along with other faculty we’re able to create our own Kingsian study program that focuses on the core values of a King’s education. To lead students into these culturally rich lands and show them in practice the arts and ideas we’ve been studying in class is what teaching is all about. Or it should be!” Bleattler and the faculty have been talking about future trips to Germany, Austria, England, Scotland, Russia, and a return to Italy.