Dickinson in England

Norwich Programs

• Norwich, a city with 200,000 residents, combines the best of old and new England, from a trendy underground shopping mall to a Norman castle on a hill overlooking the community.

• Classes are held at the University of East Anglia, a modern campus located on “The Broads,” 270 acres of open parkland on the outskirts of Norwich, with views of rivers, woods and meadows from all angles. University buildings are connected by elevated pedestrian walkways.

• The city of Norwich also features pedestrian walkways, but these are ancient streets too narrow for vehicles, where shops and cafes hang over the passageways. Norwich also boasts one of the oldest open-air markets in England.

Dickinson College operates the largest study abroad program based at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, offering two programs: one in the arts and humanities, the other in the sciences.

Both programs are based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), a university well known for the quality of its academic programs. The Arts and Humanities program is for the academic year only; the Sciences program offers fall or spring semester options as well. Both programs combine specialized courses and academic excursions led by Dickinson professors with the regular course offerings of UEA. In addition, both programs offer innovative curricula of courses and research projects prior to the start of UEA’s regular academic year.

UEA offers excellent academic programs and resources. A number of the faculty members are leading scholars in their fields, and its library contains 500,000 volumes and more than 2,500 periodicals. The campus offers many social opportunities through various clubs and organizations and a new state-of-the-art sports facility provides for recreational pursuits.

UEA is located just a short bus ride from the center of Norwich, a city that is more than 1,000 years old with a unique blend of medieval and modern architecture.

Programs and Courses
Arts and Humanities Program
The Norwich Arts and Humanities program emphasizes an interdisciplinary curriculum with course offerings in literature, history, museum studies, political science, music, drama, economics, film, American studies, philosophy and more.

Move Beyond Tourism
The Norwich Arts and Humanities Program begins with four weeks in London, where students take an innovative interdisciplinary course that studies the history and culture of the city. Students actively research and study various aspects of London and, at the end of their time there, they are responsible for (and capable of!) leading a walking tour through “their” specific section of the city.

After the first month, the program moves to Norwich, where students take Humanities 310 along with courses from UEA’s regular offerings. Humanities 310 focuses on the history and culture of Norwich and the Norfolk region. Academic excursions and student field research are integral to the course. Places visited include Blickling Hall (a 17th century country house), Cromer (a Victorian-age railway resort on the North Norfolk coast) and Wicken Fen (a nature preserve before the draining of the fens).

During the fall semester students design and begin work on a major research project. This project comprises an academic component, consisting of research conducted in the library and an experiential component that takes students outside the university into the world of Norwich or beyond. For English majors the experiential component may mean the study of a place in literature and involve visits to specific sites in East Anglia. For history majors it may mean working in local archives or the compilation of oral histories. For art majors, a regional artist may be studied. Others choose volunteer work with a community organization. Students continue to work on their projects throughout the spring semester.

Internship placements are currently under development.

Science Program
The Norwich Science program offers both semester and academic year options. Students benefit from access to the course offerings and research opportunities of a major research university while at the same time participating in the program-specific curriculum offered by the on-site science-program director. UEA has highly regarded programs in the sciences, particularly in the areas of biology, environmental science and chemistry.

In addition to the three UEA science courses taken each semester, a required Dickinson course is taught by the science program director. Prior to fall semester a four-week History of Science course is held in London. London museums, libraries and historical sites are used as a natural laboratory for investigating the development of science from the mid-1600’s to the present. Students utilize the resources of the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Library; they walk the woodland path behind Down House that provided daily inspiration to Charles Darwin; they reenact a mid-19th century pre-anaesthesia operation in a period operating theatre; they see the extraordinary clocks that John Harrison built to solve the Longitude problem at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Using an active learning approach, students conduct walking tours, research the lives of individual scientists and present their findings to the group.

For this course students have researched such topics as:
• the impact of voyages of discovery on 19th century scientific thought;
• the link between religion and science from the 17th to 19th centuries;
• the tight coupling between the history of warfare and the history of medicine;
• the development of specialized hospitals for women, children and the mentally ill during the 19th century.

The spring-semester Dickinson course, Science and Society, also incorporates a London field experience while engaging students in science-oriented topics. In a seminar-style course students research and present topics that have included the controversy over the MMR vaccine; mad-cow disease as linked to the variant form of the human brain disease CJD; the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Britain; global climate change; and the crisis in the British National Health Service. Students may take excursions to Parliament to discuss science issues with MPs, walk in the footsteps of Watson and Crick in Cambridge, and explore alternative energy sources at the Swaffham EcoTech Centre, the site of the UK’s largest wind turbine.

The excellent opportunities for research at UEA include research project courses taken in the respective science schools as well as opportunities at the Norwich Research Park and the new Norfolk and Norwich Hospital/Medical School. Student research topics have included cancer cell genetics, cataract development, environmental politics in Europe and plant gene expression.

Summer Session in London
A six-week London summer session uses the many resources available in the city—galleries, libraries, museums and theatres—as a “classroom” for the study of art, music, literature, theatre and history. Students explore London in-depth and travel outside the capital to important historical and cultural sites, such as Bath, Greenwich, Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon.

The Summer Session in London grants one credit.

Click here for more information about the 2008 London Summer Program.

On-Site Administration
Prof. Andy Rudalevige as the resident director of the Arts and Humanities Program. Prof.Rudalevige plans and leads the academic program, advises students and teaches the Humanities 309-310 courses. Prof. Marcus Key , resident director for the Science Program, leads the academic program, advises students, and teaches the History of Science and the Science and Society courses. The Science Program director also teaches one science course per year at the University. Dickinson faculty members serve as on-site directors for the summer program.

Housing
Students who enroll in the fall and spring semesters are housed in furnished, single dormitory rooms at the University of East Anglia. An effort is made to place students in an international setting, where they will meet representatives of many other countries. A communal cooking area is available.

Participants in the Summer Session in London are housed in a hotel in the Bloomsbury area, near the British Museum.

* This is the program fee for 2008-09; the program fee for 2009-10 will correspond to on-campus tuition and fees and will be determined during spring 2009.

Program Fee Includes
• tuition and fees
• room and board
• pre-departure and on-site orientations
• academic excursions

The program fee does not include primary health insurance, airfare, passport, visa, immunizations, optional travel, personal expenses, meals and housing during vacations, books and supplies.

Special Requirements & Recommendations
3.0 GPA
Arts & Humanities applicants are encouraged to take a course in English literature, a 200-level course in English history, and history of art or history of music or theatre history or classical archaeology before studying abroad.

Links

Norwich Handbook

Photos for the Norwich Program

University of East Anglia International Office

British Council Pre-departure Guide

* Please contact our office for an specific information regarding passports, visas, course registration, etc.

For more information, contact
The Norwich Arts & Humanities Program:
Prof. Karl Qualls, On-Campus Coordinator
Department of History
Dickinson College
P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013-2896
Phone: (717) 245-1774
E-mail:quallsk@dickinson.edu

The Norwich Science Program:
Prof. David Crouch, On-Campus Coordinator
Department of Chemistry
Dickinson College
P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013-2896
Phone: TBD
E-mail: crouch@dickinson.edu

The Summer Session in London:
Office of Global Education
Dickinson College
P.O. Box 1773
Carlisle, PA 17013-2896
Phone: (717) 245-1341
E-mail: global@dickinson.edu