study abroad SERVICE TRAVEL AND

where to go:

SCHOOL YEAR ABROAD AND SEMESTER AWAY STUDY PROGRAMS

The School Year Abroad program includes immersion experiences in China, France, Spain, and Italy. Our students also participate in semester programs at the Maine Coast Program of the Chewonki Foundation, at the Island School in the Bahamas, and at the High Mountain Institute in Colorado. Mids and upper mids may spend a full academic year or semester at King’s Academy in Jordan.

CULTURAL IMMERSION

Taft’s World Language Department offers summer immersion programs in Spain and France. Students live with host families, attend classes, and explore the cultural richness of these regions, with additional opportunities for weekend travel.

VACATION STUDY ABROAD

Taft faculty members often organize service travel opportunities for students during spring break and immediately following the close of the academic year. Tafties have built homes in Guatemala, taught English to schoolchildren in the Dominican Republic, designed academic programs in Costa Rica, and worked in Botswana, Hawaii, Mexico, and Nicaragua. We also offer grants and fellowships that allow students to engage with a host of service and educational travel agencies and programs working in communities throughout the world.

how to get there:

KILBOURNE GRANTS

Kilbourne family grants help Taft students attend summer enrichment programs focused on the arts.

POOLE FELLOWSHIPS

This service-oriented summer grant program encourages students to broaden their perspectives and expose themselves to new ideas and experiences. Recent projects include community service in Moldova, Mongolia, Cambodia, India, and Vietnam, as well as service projects in the U.S.

MEG PAGE ’74 FELLOWSHIPS

These fellowships are awarded annually to students who wish to explore an experience or course of study devoted to the provision of better healthcare in areas such as public health, family planning, medical research, mental health, and non-Western practices of healing.

Meet Bojana

HOMETOWN:

BELGRADE, SERBIA

PASSION:

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

INNOVATIVE INITIATVE: GLOBAL STUDIES AND SERVICE DIPLOMA; SERVICE TRAVEL, ROBERT KEYES POOLE ’50

FELLOWSHIP

COLLEGE: BOWDOIN COLLEGE

Bojana is passionate about the environment. She is especially passionate about climate change.

“I knew that the greatest impact of changes in the climate can be measured in the Arctic,” Bojana says, “and that if I really wanted to study and understand climate change, I needed go there.”

And she did. With support from a Robert Keyes Poole ’50 Fellowship, Bojana spent ten days at the edge of the Arctic working with two scientists from the Earthwatch Institute, an international, research-driven, environmental nonprofit built on a citizen science model. The expedition base was Dechen la’, a remote lodge in the midst of tundra. “Dechen la’” comes from an aboriginal word meaning “the land at the end of the sticks,” and indeed, the end of the sticks—the tree line—played a crucial role in Bojana’s work. The lead scientist on the expedition is studying how climate and environmental change shape tree line dynamics. Bojana identified seedlings of firs and spruces and recorded their growth in seeded and unseeded plots to establish reproductive potential.

“The data I collected will be crucial in proving that warmer growing seasons can lead to a greater number of viable tree seeds produced and higher germination success, allowing the tree line to migrate further into the tundra, where it is harder for them to survive because of the harsh conditions,” says Bojana.

Bojana also worked on an ongoing project assessing the region’s permafrost layer, the soil that remains frozen— below 0 degrees Celsius—for more than a year. As temperatures rise and permafrost thaws, the organic compounds in it begin to decompose, producing carbon dioxide and methane. The release of these greenhouse gases will amplify the effects of global warming.

“It is a 30-year project,” Bojana says, “Earthwatch comes back year after year to measure the permafrost in the same locations, which was what I was doing—probing the ground using a 200-centimeter metal pole and recording the permafrost depth. I could see the direct effects immediately. What I measured could really be influential in future research.”

LIVING WHERE WE LEARN.

LEARNING WHERE WE LIVE.

Taft is, in every sense of the word, a community. Our shared passions and purpose bring us together intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally; our individuality connects us on a deeper level, as we live and learn through shared experiences in common spaces. Our unique architectural design strengthens that sense of community: “Main Hall” is a vibrant, bustling corridor running through the heart of our campus. It connects meeting spaces, classrooms, dormitories, arts spaces, offices, dining halls and common rooms—and all of its travelers along the way. It is a place where lives intersect and where community thrives. And it is uniquely Taft.