October 4, 1999
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker
610-328-8534
[email protected]
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News
Swarthmore Launches Semester Abroad Programs in Poland
Swarthmore College has established two first-of-their-kind study-abroad programs in Poland. Beginning next spring semester, Swarthmore dance and theater students will earn credit for working with the Silesian Dance Theater in Bytom, Poland, while engineering and environmental studies students will pursue environmental studies at the Technical University of Cracow.
Organizers of both programs describe them as examples of the kind of opportunities available to American higher education in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War -- opportunities that U.S. schools have been slow to pursue.
"It's a time of profound changes in Poland's higher education and artistic communities -- particularly in the region where this program is operating -- and we're suddenly right in the middle of it," said Allen Kuharski, a Swarthmore theater studies professor who is directing the program with the Silesian Dance Theater after organizing exchanges with Polish theater groups for years on an ad hoc basis. "What makes this study-abroad opportunity unique is that it's based at a dance company, a non-academic organization," adds Kuharski, who says the Swarthmore participants will have an experience similar to a professional internship.
The study-abroad program with Silesian Dance Theater grows out of the company's weeklong residence at Swarthmore last February. Founded and directed by Jacek Luminski, the troupe has won critical acclaim in America for an original style that reflects Luminski's training in both ballet and modern dance. Initially, four or five Swarthmore students per semester are expected to take part in the program, which will include weekly tutorials at the nearby Jagiellonian University of Cracow. Swarthmore students will also participate in the International Dance Conference and Performance Festival, which Silesian Dance Theater hosts each summer in Bytom, Poland.
The environmental studies opportunity builds on Swarthmore engineering professor Arthur McGarity's longtime interest in Poland. "Poland is an exciting place to be for students interested in environmental studies," says McGarity, who twice in his career has studied and worked in Poland with Fulbright Fellowships. "As part of its post-Soviet legacy, the country has lots of environmental problems, but also a great deal of interest in solving them."
Swarthmore students will enroll in an environmental curriculum taught in English. Included in their work will be a required course on environmental science and technology in Poland, with lectures by prominent Polish researchers and environmentalists and field trips to sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Elective courses in such areas as water supply engineering, ecological engineering, and sustainable development will also be offered.
Both the dance and environmental programs will have cultural and language components as well. The foundation for Poland dance and theater exchange was laid earlier this decade by Sharon Friedler, professor of dance and director of the dance program at Swarthmore, in collaboration with several other faculty members. Friedler led the creation of a partnership between the theater and dance programs at the College, and it was she who initially proposed a study-abroad initiative involving the Polish performing arts community. Friedler has pioneered other foreign exchanges at Swarthmore, including one that gives dance students the opportunity to study at the University of Ghana at the International Centre for African Music and Dance and the School of Performing Arts.
Also contributing to the formation of the exchange with Silesian Dance Theater has been Kim Arrow, assistant professor of dance, who traveled to Poland last summer to perform and lead workshops at the Bytom festival and conference.
-30-
RSS