MIT alumni have an ongoing desire to learn about the world around them and a strong interest in participating in continuing education programs. Through the trips offered by the MIT Alumni Travel Program, designed to offer travel with education, MIT faculty can become involved and reap the satisfaction of sharing their expertise with our curious alumni while traveling to destinations around the globe.

During the past few years, a growing number of distinguished faculty have generously offered their time and energy to our alumni and in turn have enjoyed every aspect of the experience. The MIT Alumni Travel Program staff would like to speak to other faculty members who might be interested in similar opportunities.

This past March, MIT Professor S. Jay Keyser led an Alumni Travel Program trip from New Orleans to Chicago on board the American Orient Express luxury train. Twenty-four alumni and friends of MIT, along with travelers from other institutions, learned about the history of jazz in the United States and enjoyed some great music from Professor Keyser and his New Liberty Jazz Band. Of his experience, Professor Keyser explained "Playing jazz on the American Orient Express for the MIT alumni was like being in a 1950s movie. I half expected to see Dick Powell come through the Rocky Mountain Lounge car looking for clues. Who was that blond who left a lipstick-stained cigarette smoking in the ashtray? Why did she leave just as the band began to play ‘Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?’ It was the experience of a lifetime. I don’t think any of us would have missed it for the world. How I long to hear ‘all aboard’ all over again." Professor Keyser is hosting an alumni program in Kenya this fall.

Professor Emeritus Ernst Frankel of the Ocean Engineering Department is busy preparing for his alumni trip to China this fall. The group of 40 travelers will visit Beijing, Xian, take a four-day cruise on the Yangtse River, and spend some time in Shanghai. Professor Frankel served as a consultant to the Chinese government on infrastructure development, and he will share with the alumni group his knowledge of the Yangtse River development projects. "I have led alumni groups traveling through Europe, Russia, and China and have enjoyed my travel experience with alumni very much, making long-lasting friendships along the way. The intellectual exchange with the alumni travelers has always been a rewarding one. I feel it is very important as a faculty member of MIT to make the connection with our alumni – it not only benefits MIT, but I feel I benefit from the experience as well."

Ford Professor Emeritus Dr. Donald Harleman will be leading a group of MIT alumni on a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam this fall. Of his past experience, providing lectures to a group of alumni who made the passage through the Panama Canal, Dr. Harleman comments, "My wife Martha and I have made some wonderful friends by arranging on-board social gatherings with the alumni group. I heartily recommend this to my faculty colleagues."

"I can truly recommend the assignment – it was a great experience," says Ford Professor Emeritus Lucian Pye of MIT’s Political Science Department, who escorted alumni groups to China in 1993 and 1996. Professor Pye speaks highly of his experience and remarks on the rewards: "The group was made up of people with a high level of sociability and intellectual curiosity, so aside from their responding to the lecture sessions, we had many interesting conversations."

Later this year, Professor William Brace and Professor Samuel Bowring, both of EAPS, will lead programs to Iceland and the Galapagos Islands, respectively. Professor of History Peter Perdue departs this month to lecture to a group of alumni on board a Russian river cruise.

Since we are now planning our 1999 programs, as manager of the Alumni Travel Program, I would like to speak to faculty interested in joining these trips to help provide educational content for our alumni. Some of the destinations for which there are faculty openings are The Great Whales of Baja (January), Tahiti and Easter Island (February), Costa Rica & the Panama Canal (March), Holland and Belgium (April), South Africa via Rovos Rail (April), Bohemia and Saxony: the Vltava and Elbe Rivers (June), Greenland & Maritime Canada (August), Alaska Family program (August), Bordeaux (September), Columbia River via paddle wheel boat (September), Brazil & the Amazon (October), as well as two river cruise programs in Europe in July and September.

Please contact me to get more information. I can be reached at <mchapman@mit.edu>, 253-8265, or by fax 258-6211.

If you travel regularly or occasionally, to do research, attend professional conferences, consult, visit friends or family, or headline a special event, and you have time and are willing to fit in some alumni interaction during your trip, let us list you with the Alumni Association’s Speaker’s Bureau.

The Speaker’s Bureau offers a pool of MIT faculty and topics from which MIT clubs and other MIT alumni groups may identify speakers and topics of interest to their groups for dinner talks, seminars, or special events. The Speaker’s Bureau coordinates speaker recruitment and logistics for the general audience of alumni and friends who want to keep abreast of the excitement that is MIT.

To learn more about this program and how to participate, contact Bob Blake HM, at <rblake@mit.edu>, 253-8243; or by fax 617-258-6211.