More than 400 Arcadia University students, faculty and staff participating in 17 Previews and three Interdisciplinary (ID) courses will knock down the classroom walls, and set off into 21 groups in 6 different continents to conduct fieldwork and in-country study, starting March 9. Students will visit historic sites, cathedrals, museums, neighborhoods and explore till they drop.

Preview is a fun and educational experience like no other. The spring break adventure for first-year students, has been an Arcadia University tradition since 1994. “Now two-thirds of our first year students, along with many of our transfer students, participate in global learning experiences in more than a dozen Preview locations each spring,” says President Carl (Tobey) Oxholm. “It’s an Arcadia tradition treasured by alumni and students.” Many courses are credit-baring for course work completed before, during and after spring break.

First-year students, faculty and staff are headed to Shanghai, China; Havana, Cuba; London, UK; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; Dublin and Belfast, Ireland; Jerusalem, Israel; Puebla, Mexico; Auckland, New Zealand; Bucharest, Romania; Granada and Seville, Spain; Edinburgh, Scotland. Transfer students are heading to Vienna, Austria; Sicily, Italy; Puebla, Mexico; and Bucharest, Romania. They will study US-Cuba Relations in Havana, the Cold War in Berlin, Religion in Israel, multiculturalism in Romania, and more.

Students in three of Arcadia’s distinctive ID courses, which include short-term, faculty-led international experiences, will travel abroad during spring break.

The Visual Artist in Italy, led by Associate Professor Betsy Batchelor, will travel to Florence, Perugia, Assisi, Siena and Spoleto, to investigate western artistic heritage.

Divided Cities: Nicosia, Cyprus, led by Dr. Warren Haffar, Professor and Interim Dean of Historical and Political Studies, and Dr. Samer Nassif Abboud, Assistant Professor, will explore the topics of division, governance and reconciliation on the divided island of Cyprus.

Literature and Culture in Postcolonial Ghana, led by Dr. Kalenda Eaton, Assistant Professor of English, will examine Ghanaian literature, history and culture, and compare the various cultures of sub-Saharan Africa through artistic mediums of popular culture—music, film and video—as well as indigenous languages and oral tradition in the 21st century.