Academic Program

Quality of the Academic Program for the Semester at Sea

By Gordon K. MacLeod

March 8, 2000

Two years before the Fall 1999 Voyage on the Semester at Sea embarked, I had been designated Academic Dean and had to recruit some 30 faculty members from all over the U.S. to teach 73 courses in a globally oriented liberal arts curriculum.

Last Sep. 14, 1999 we embarked after a four-day orientation from Vancouver, BC together with 625 enthusiastic undergraduate students on board the SS Universe Explorer for an unforgettable adventure that took us around the world. For the next hundred days we sailed in a westerly direction with classes held every day from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM while at sea. We stopped in ten different ports along the way, and arrived in Miami on December 23. Prior to arrival in each port, cultural and logistical preport lectures preceded diplomatic briefings from U.S. consulates after docking.

It took 13 days to cross the North Pacific. The only land we saw was a distant view of the Aleutian Islands. We spotted migrating whales, an occasional flying fish and some playful porpoises. Mostly calm beautiful weather, but we encountered one storm with seas up to 35 feet.

First stop was Kobe, Japan where students and faculty dispersed to pursue field assignments or participate in Faculty developed practica, stay around Kobe, or take Bullet Trains to Hiroshima, Kyoto, Tokyo and elsewhere. We left Japan after five days.

After three more days at sea and we arrived in Hong Kong. About half the students flew to Xi'an and Beijing. The other half stayed around Hong Kong and Macau or traveled to other cities in China. Beijing was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Communism in China. Prior to our departure I had arranged to give a talk through the Rockefeller Foundation's China Medical Board at Peking Union Medical College. After an hour-long presentation to the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences on the U.S. Health System, Chinese scholars questioned me for two more hours about whether China should set up a not-for-profit or for-profit health insurance system.

It took two days to sail from China to Ho Chi Minh City. Again, Students and Faculty dispersed to pursue field assignments and more sightseeing. Some flew off to Cambodia; others to Hanoi while many stayed and visited the vestiges of the war around the ship.

After four more days at sea, we reached Penang, Malaysia with students and Faculty fanning out around the country. Here, I led some 40 students on a faculty practicum to observe the practice of traditional Chinese Medicine providing health care to about half the population.

It took us three days to reach Chennai (formerly Madras), India. Again, I conducted a practicum for some 30 students to observe a pediatric unit in an ultra-modern academic medical center where 100 of 600 medical students were Americans.

While not part of the itinerary, the "Man Overboard" incident is worth mentioning. The captain said early on that a successful rescue was nigh on to impossible. At 12:30 at night, the man overboard call went out to everyone on the ship. It was a pitch-black night in the shark-infested waters on the Red Sea. Happily, the ship was able to turn sharply and the student's calls for help were heard; a lifeboat was lowered over the side and he was brought back on board, only to be sent home.

It took 11 days at sea to cross the Indian Ocean; almost all the passengers made a brief stop in Cairo to see the museum and to visit the pyramids and Sphinx at Giza. A few of us remained on board and joined a convoy of four monstrous ships gliding north through the Suez Canal. We rejoined the students in Port Said.

Two days later we arrived for a five-day stay in Istanbul with its beautiful mosques and museums. We happened upon Kofi Annan in an outdoor cafe and I invited him to visit the ship; unfortunately, he had to leave shortly for Ankara. More cultural exposure including an Ottoman Banquet was complete with music by a Mehter band.

We then sailed through the Aegean into the Adriatic Sea in two days to reach the medieval city of Dubrovnik, perched on the Dalmatian coast.

For the next two days we sailed through the Straight of Messina to Rome. Most of the voyagers visited St. Peter's Basilica, the restored Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, and the Coliseum. Many went off to Florence and Venice. The rest went off to Southern Italy to Naples, Sorrento, Capri and the ruins at Pompeii.

Our last port, Casablanca, was reached in three days. Again, the students dispersed to Fez, Rabat, Marrakech, and elsewhere.

An eleven-day sail across the Atlantic brought us back home to Miami on December 23.

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