Travel Opportunities

Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP)

Each year students have the opportunity to attend AWP's annual conference. This conference "is the annual destination for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers of contemporary creative writing. It includes thousands of attendees, hundreds of events and bookfair exhibitors, and four days of essential literary conversation and celebration." Past conferences have taken place in San Antonio, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Canada

Every year students also travel to Stratford, Ontario, Canada to attend the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Italy

Our students have traveled to Italy to take courses in food and travel writing and Italian Literature. Last year students took a cooking class from Chef Carmelita from Bologna. They had a day's seminar with Professor Giorgio Mariani from the University of Rome and lunched with Italian graduate students. Students toured the Coliseum and the Vatican in Rome. They stayed in apartments in Florence, studying the Italian Renaissance and seeing works by Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, and Botticelli. In Bologna they saw the buildings that Dante wrote about, and they learned to cook, eat and write about some the best food in the world.

Japan

The LLCW offers two different opportunities for travel to Japan, a 10-day program and a study abroad opporunitiy.

The 10-day faculty-led program in May offers a short study-abroad like experience, organized with Saga University, our SRU’s partner university in Japan. The students will attend various cultural workshops and excursions including the worldly recognized Arita porcelain site visit where they get to paint a cup, Nagasaki for a peace ceremony, local school visits, a tea ceremony, and much more. Moreover, each student will be paired with a Saga University student conversation partner who they typically go out for dinner and enjoy a weekend together. They may also have a homestay opportunity if they wish to do so. All students enrolled in a Japanese course in spring/summer 2023 or ART108: Basic Printmaking taught by Prof. Theresa Antonellis in spring 2023 are eligible. Please contact Prof. Yukako Ishimaru at yukako.ishimaru@sru.edu for more information.

In the Exchange program, a student studies abroad for a semester or two semesters at our partner universities. The credits earned at a host institution will be transferred and applied to the student’s degree by the student’s advisee’s approval. A student pays a full-time SRU tuition to SRU and does not owe the host institution, and financial aides normally apply to an exchange program.

There are three exchange programs in Japan: Kansai Gaidai University, Saga University, and Seinan Gakuin University. Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka and Seinan Gakuin University are private universities. Saga University in Saga is a national university. Please click on the links to Kansai Gaidai University, Saga University, and Seinan Gakuin University for more information including program requirements, academic information, accommodation and meals, and health & safety. For questions regarding application, please contact Ms. Jenny Kawata at jenny.kawata@sru.edu. For general questions such which program to choose, please contact Prof. Yukako Ishimaru at yukako.ishimaru@sru.edu.

Local Travel

Domestic trips are also popular, and our students have visited Thoreau's home as well as Pittsburgh performances and museums.

London

The Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Writing Department offers students enrolled in Spring 2023's British Literature II course an opportunity to journey to London, England, for a week-long visit in May 2023. We'll see Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, the British Museum, the Charles Dickens Museum, the London Eye, a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, and much more. Please contact Dr. Timothy Ruppert at timothy.ruppert@sru.edu for further information.

Sigma Tau Delta Conference

Members of the English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, annually attend our International Conference. Last year the conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia. The upcoming 2023 conference will take place in Denver, Colorado.

Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Writing