The Office of Global Programs collaborated with faculty and academic departments to create three study-abroad opportunities during summer 2014: an archaeological dig program at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the most important of the Roman imperial villas; a film program at Waseda University in Tokyo focused on the influential works of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa; and the opportunity to study the language, history and culture and explore the connections among France, the Middle East and North Africa through a program jointly run at the Columbia Global Centers in Amman and Paris.

The three new programs create unique academic and cultural experiences, offering students the opportunity to gain practical training on an archaeological dig (in Tivoli), to focus on a specific topic and immerse themselves in a life and environment (in Tokyo) or to answer questions from multiple perspectives that require students to synthesize and wrestle with the connections and oppositions of disparate places (in Amman and Paris). These programs join more than a dozen Columbia-run programs in the Office of Global Programs, ranging from the 50-year-old “Columbia in Paris at Reid Hall,” to the 10-year-old “Summer Program in Venice” to newer programs such as “Tropical Biology and Sustainability in Kenya” and “Byzantine Studies and Urban Mapping” in Istanbul.

New programs in 2014–2015 will include a spring seminar on “Byzantine and Modern Greek Encounters” in Istanbul, a summer seminar on visual cultures at Yonsei University in Seoul, a summer program on “Democracy and Constitutional Engineering” in Tunis and Istanbul, and a joint semester or academic-year program in Cuba. Art Humanities and Music Humanities will also be offered at Reid Hall beginning in spring 2015.