An opportunity for WKU students to travel to London for up to six credit hours is available through a partnership with Murray State University. 

Professor Bernard Lewis, an English and humanities professor at Murray State University, is hosting a study abroad trip named Dead Poets in London.

The trip will be a month long from July 7 to Aug. 6 in the summer of 2017.

Lewis will be the instructor during the trip in which students can earn credit for HUM 205 The Humanistic Tradition Abroad or ENG 330 Special Topics, both Murray courses. ENG 330 from Murray does transfer to WKU as ENG 399 Special Topics.

For an additional cost, students can add three more hours worth of credit, totaling to six hours of credit. Professor Danielle Nielsen from MSU will be instructing her London trip named Horror, Myth and Legend in English Literature. Students can earn credit for ENG 243: Literary Masterpieces: Fantasy, Myth and Legend, ENG 330: Special Topics or HON 252: Lit & PHI II.

“There will be no classroom sitting,” Lewis said. “Other than a few presentations, everything we do will be an experience.”

Students will travel to London, Canterbury, Stratford-on-Avon, and many more places during the four-week stay.

Students will get to experience many attractions and excursions on the trip.

The cost of the trip will be $4,565, not including air travel. This base price includes lodging at the Kings College in private dorms with private bathrooms at Moonraker Point, which is a few minutes from the Globe Theater, the Millennium Bridge and the Tube stations.

Students will also get a four-week unlimited Tube pass, which is an underground train that will be able to take students anywhere in the city of London.

Lewis said students would have plenty of time to use the Tube passes during the visit.

“The classroom time will be four days a week, so they have three very long weekends to go as they please and experience London,” Lewis said.

On the class trip with Lewis, students will visit the Canterbury Cathedral, the Globe Theater, Shakespeare’s grave, Anne Hathaway’s cottage, HighGate Cemetery, the British Library, Dover Castle and Poet’s Corner to name a few.

The museums and libraries are free so that students may visit them during their free time without an expense.

Lewis’s class will be required to keep a journal throughout the duration of the trip. Lewis stressed that this trip wasn’t just for English students, and his journals showed that.

“One of the students going is a graphic design major and will be doing a photographic journal with commentary,” Lewis said.

Students will also get to experience the BBC Proms. The Proms is one of the oldest classical music concerts in the world, Lewis said. The concert is held at the Royal Albert Hall in mid-July of 2017.

Ingram Strovall, once a Murray State University student and now at Memphis Hospital, traveled with Lewis to London before.

“I traveled to London for the Winter “Dead Poets in London” program in 2013. I absolutely loved the excursions to different palaces, museums, and castles (and the food!), plus, the play/opera we went to,” Strovall said in an email. “The fact that we were able to see what we had been reading about, up close and personal, is what I feel enhanced my learning.” 

Kristopher Cole, also once a Murray State student and now an IT employee for Murray, traveled with Lewis as a TV/Video Production major.

“I enjoyed getting to see where the Canterbury Tale started and ended, Canterbury Cathedral is such a breathtaking church, the stained glass windows are just a flashback in time, giving insight to how people lived and believed then,” Cole said. “Being able to walk, touch, see, smell, the places we heard about in classes added a whole other layer to the learning element.”

The host of the trip, Cooperative Center for Study Abroad, is now held in Tate Page Hall at WKU. For more information, contact CCSA or Bernard Lewis at Murray State University.

Reporter Kylie Carlson can be reached at 270-745-6011 and [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @kentuckylie.