Campus Buzz

Pepperdine International Programs Celebrate Forty Years

Before 1963, Pepperdine (then George Pepperdine College) could not offer students the opportunity to travel abroad. For forty years now, Seaver College has developed several international programs that offer year round residential, summer, and special interest studies in locations worldwide as an integral part of a student's education. Beginning with the program in Heidelberg, Germany, which celebrated its fortieth anniversary in 2003, Pepperdine's international programs have expanded to include London, England; Florence, Italy; Lyon, France; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. There are also associated study abroad programs in Brisbane, Australia and Tokyo, Japan, as well as the new Hong Kong program, which began in the spring of 2004. Summer and special interest programs are offered at several locations, including Africa, Honduras, Russia, Spain, and Scotland.

The Heidelberg program, now in its forty-first year, celebrated four decades of traveling and studies, exploring and discovering, learning and achieving. Mary Drehsel, a twenty-year veteran with the Heidelberg program and currently a Heidelberg professor and interim director, says Germany has experienced much change in forty years. She says, "When the program began in academic year 1963-64, Germany was a divided country, Eastern Europe was closed by the Iron Curtain, Spain was a dictatorship, and the European Union was still a dream. Today the face of Europe has changed." Now, students can travel freely to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and other previously closed countries. They can cross many borders without showing a passport or having to change money, and can communicate in English almost everywhere. Close to 4,000 students have discovered the beauties of Europe, exposed themselves to the challenges of living in another culture, let their thinking be challenged, and formed lifelong friendships. Through the help of Freunde von Heidelberg, improvements are being made that will enhance the beauty of Heidelberg's Moore Haus, which will be 100 years old in 2006.

Studying abroad provides students with a unique opportunity to gain an academic, personal, and spiritual understanding of other cultures, institutions, and languages. The international programs also develop global awareness in Seaver College students and faculty. The experiences of studying and traveling overseas provide an essential dimension to a liberal arts education that can be obtained in no other way. Upon graduation, many students conclude that participating in Pepperdine's international programs was the most significant experience of their undergraduate years. Pepperdine friends and alumni are welcome on tours through the overseas facilities, but in order to maintain high security levels, the directors ask that visitors make a reservation at least twenty-four hours in advance.