Interdisciplinary Program Director: Charles Bobertz

Coordinator of Student Research: Margaret Cook

The Honors Program at Saint Benedict's and Saint John's involves highly motivated students from all academic majors and interests in an enhanced version of the core curriculum. It also gives these students opportunities for independent thinking, research and writing within their own major. The Honors Program has served many graduates who have gone on to professional and graduate schools of quality by engaging them in liberal arts education in its most challenging forms.

Director: Stephen Burmeister-May

The Center for International Education provides intercultural education experiences for undergraduate students through the following programs: Austrian program in Salzburg; Chinese program in Beibei; British program in London; Central American program in Granada and Bagaces; French program in Cannes; Greco-Roman program in Athens and Rome; Irish program in Galway; South African program in Port Elizabeth; and Spanish program in Segovia. The office also coordinates an exchange of students between the two colleges and Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, Keele University in Staffordshire, Great Britain and the University of Malta, Msida, Malta. Other individual exchanges are being developed. Each study abroad program is limited to approximately 30 participants.

In keeping with the goals of a liberal education, the colleges' international programs allow students to explore diverse manifestations of the human condition and to examine fundamental, recurring questions about themselves and the world. The emphasis is upon a disciplined and focused curriculum which is designed to take full advantage of local, regional and national opportunities at each site. Courses taught abroad are integrated fully into the core curriculum and/or departmental offerings. Each program includes a required pre-departure course that includes readings, lectures, discussions, writing assignments and audio-visual components. These on-campus classes, together with individualized academic planning and increased attention to building upon the international experience after return to campus, serve to integrate the study abroad programs into the overall curriculum.

Central America

The Central American program has as its main objective intensive study of Spanish language and Latin American culture through intensive small group immersion of 120 hours combined with a major field work, practicum or internship of approximately 200 hours.

The program is designed to offer study abroad options to students of Spanish, Latin American studies, natural sciences and management. Students begin their intensive Spanish study with four weeks in Granada, Nicaragua and complete their program and field work during their final 11 weeks in Guanacaste province of Costa Rica. During the entire period of study each student will live and take most meals with a local family. Courses will be taught by language specialists and adjunct university faculty. Excursions will explore the rich natural diversity of Central America's beaches, volcanoes and rain forests.

The Chinese program is located in Beibei, a city in southwest China, Chongqing municipality. The focus of the program is upon Chinese language, history, culture, literature, philosophy and art. All courses are taught in English at Southwest China Teacher's University, a liberal arts university of 7,000 students. Students live on the campus in the foreign student dormitory. The faculty consists of a professor who accompanies the group and distinguished professors from the host university. In order to expose students to China's diversity, the program provides approximately two weeks of travel to major Chinese cities and sites usually including Chengdu, Beijing and Xian prior to the beginning of classes in Beibei. From Beibei the program includes numerous excursions in Sichuan province such as the Northern hot springs, the Yangtze River and beyond.