fort charlotte

the students arrived today and the faculty ran ran far far from the ship! Sherri & I worked in the library for a few hours and then called it a day. I did a faculty developed practicum (FDP) to Fort Charlotte. The fort was built in 1787 but never saw any conflict. It was built by Lord Dunmore who was the former Governor of Virginia (and New York) and so he named his fort after the Queen that also bequeathed her name to Charlottesville.

Then we had a fried-sea-food-filled lunch at a place on the water. Some photos as we walked back:

Our ship, the MV Explorer!



That is Robin & Dawn. I’ll write about both of them in a future post. I'm trying hard to keep these posts to a manageable reading length.

Lovely day all in all. All the faculty/staff had this feeling this afternoon of "who are all these people on OUR ship!?!" when we came back & saw all the students running around. I've been saying that I actually think library-life will calm down for us now that the students have boarded. The students aren’t going to be as interested in the library their first week of school nearly as much as the faculty are. We’re getting a better handle on reserves now and the faculty are going to be otherwise occupied. Most of the faculty laptops are now all set up & those wanting access to the UVA databases are all (most all) successfully connected. The faculty are amazed & delighted by the UVA Library service. It’s fun to watch & it makes me proud of the work we do at UVA. I also got a book request from the Archbishop this morning as soon I introduced myself to him. I’ve emailed UVA so that we can amaze & delight him as well.

I actually spent quality-time today with the Archbishop while we were at the endlessly-long life boat drill. It was very very hot. We had to wear warm clothes for the drill – hats, long sleeves, long pants, closed toed shoes. I wasn’t sure if my crocs qualified as closed toed, so I put on sneakers. There were two missing students & so we stood there a very long time. After they checked our names off (I’m at the same muster station with the Archbishop & most of the faculty) and it was clear we weren't getting dismissed anytime soon, I sat down on a stairwell. The Archbishop came and joined me and the two of us sat there for a good 10 minutes until they came through for inspections and told us we needed to stand. He’s warm & funny & crazily accessible. They made us stand women & children first, but frankly it seems to me that Nobel Prize winners deserve to be first. Not to jinx anything, but I figure if I've got to get on a lifeboat, Desmond Tutu is the guy to be with.

And then we sailed away. Parents & ISE staff waved us off. It was really quite overwhelming. I’m going away for 100 days ... Here are a few photos as we left Nassau. I’ve also added some more to the map above.

and away we go ...

the archbishop & gloria

Sitting at breakfast this morning, there was the Archbishop. Just standing there walking through the cafeteria line. I'd comment that one of the crew took his tray and walked him to the table, but they do that for us as well. For a little while, he was sitting there alone until people started to notice and came up to introduce themselves and join him. He has an amazing laugh, you can hear him from afar on the ship. The library/computer lab area is a mezzanine above the area called "Purser's Square" where the reception desk is and the administrative offices. (It’s a circle, not a square, but nevermind that little detail.) It's a little echo-y, so you can hear what's said above from below (if your voice carries, like mine definitely does!) or vice versa. The Archbishop's laugh definitely carries. It’s raw & joyful. Leah Tutu will also be here for part of the voyage, but she won’t be boarding until Cape Town, as she is recovering from knee replacement surgery. We didn't see him in the library today, but I imagine we will. The fancy reception/dinner was tonight. I'm sitting in the computer lab and watching the fancy-dressed people tour the ship as I write ....

today we were anchored, as opposed to puttering. We just sort of hung out in the middle of the blue, blue water.

Our workstudy students started and that was fun, if chaotic. We taught them to configure their laptops so that they could help others. Then, Sherri took 3 of them and showed them basic library operations and I took the other two and we scanned course reserves in the multimedia lab for faculty who didn't submit requests up-front through UVA. The multimedia lab is very swanky -- there will be a professionally-done voyage video and the yearbook, etc., created in the lab. High-end computers with rolling chairs. I comment on the rolling chairs because Erika told me that the reason we don't have rolling chairs in the library was that this is a moving vessel ... But, the swanky multimedia lab does have rolling chairs. They also have carpet, which I imagine helps. The scanning is slow going, but progress is being made from the stack of books we have been given. We've also been sending article requests back to UVA for scanning & will continue to do that as well. The reading for these classes is quite impressive. Both quality & quantity. The class list is available here. There are a whole bunch of classes I wish I could take. There are a good number of classes with a gender studies/women's studies emphasis, there are two travel writing classes I would love to take -- especially with all the blogging -- Writing about Travel and Expository Writing: Culture and Ideology of the Physical and Mental Traveler, and some really interesting religion classes, including Spirit Possession and Ethnography and Mysticism and Religious Experience.

I thought I’d start telling you about some of the people aboard. First off, there’s Gloria who is an anthropology professor. She worked in Vermont for many many years, but now she is living in Pittsburgh where her son & daughter-in-law will have a second baby while Gloria is at sea. She is from southwest Philadelphia, where her father pushed a fruit cart, but she left when she was 19. Gloria does research consulting & teaches as an adjunct at Pitt. She has done much of her research in Panama and for SAS, she is teaching Field Research Methods, Gender, Class, Race-Ethnicity, and Social Change, and Development: Local to Global Perspectives. Gloria lost a box that was shipped to us in Fort Lauderdale and arrived at the warehouse but not to the ship. She lost several precious books – both personally & those needed for class – so we’re trying very hard to help her reassemble materials. She also lost a towel (blanket?) that she took to the field for every project she’s ever gone on. She’s obviously very sad about that, but says she’ll get over it. We know that boxes that miss one port sometimes make the next, so there may also still be hope. Gloria journals when she’s in the field and she has about 70 people on her email list. A few of them have been published. Although she is not one of the travel-writing professors, I’m taking tips from her as well. I also want to be added to her email list!

about the ship

According to the Voyager's Handbook (spring, 2007):

The MV Explorer was built in Germany as the world's fastest cruise ship and completed in 2001. She has a gross tonnage of 24,318, a length of 590 feet, breadth of 84 feet, draft of 24 feet, and a cruising speed of up to 32 knots. There are 418 cabins (256 outside and 122 inside) and six participant decks for a total of 918 berths.

The earliest incarnation of Semester at Sea started in 1963 with the creation of the University of the Seven Seas. Under the administration of Chapman College, it was renamed World Campus Afloat. The Institute for Shipboard Education was incorporated in 1976 and the program was renamed Semester at Sea. The University of Colorado-Boulder was then the academic sponser and the University of Pittsburgh took it on in 1981 for 25 years before its new home at UVA. In 1979, SAS students met Anwar Sadat, in 1981 students met Indira Ghandi, in 1988 Mikhail Gorbechev and Corazon Aquino, in 1982 Desmond Tutu sailed for the first time, in 1994 they met Nelson Mandela and in 2000, Fidel Castro. In 1994, SAS was the first ship of U.S. passengers to visit Vietnam after the U.S. embargo was lifted. This spring (yes, my voyage), Desmond Tutu will be sailing with us all 100 days.

Archbishop Tutu was here for the reunion voyage (last week), flew to India to accept the Ghandi Peace Prize, and will return to Nassau tomorrow for a fundraising dinner for ISE. He will then sail with our voyage for all 100 days. We confirmed today that the proper form of address is "Archbishop."

Another full day in libraryland. The Computer Lab Coordinator and I did an IT presentation for the faculty which was immediately followed up by much configuring of laptops for the course reserve folders & for the UVA proxy server. The good news is that all the configuration went incredibly well. All of the faculty who came to us are now connecting to the UVA databases. The computer lab set up walk-in hours for configurations and Sherri & I wondered if maybe the library should have done that too, but the faculty are clearly feeling comfortable walking up whenever. It's been pretty chaotic in both locations, so I'm not sure the formality of the walk-in hours serves much better purpose! I was a little concerned about stepping on Matt's toes (the computer lab guy, who is great!), but he seems very grateful for the help. The library & the computer lab are on opposites sides of a central area so there's a lot of collaboration which is working really well.

As always, there is much password confusion ... one, two, three passwords ... one for the Internet, one for the course reserves folders, one for the UVA proxy server. You'd really think there'd be a better way ... faculty are having a very hard time understanding what's what & why the passwords have to be different.

I was hoping to get out this afternoon/early evening, but too much laptop configuration. And Sherri & I had a 7:30 meeting tonight to meet our workstudy students. We have 5 students who all seem very nice & friendly & excited to be aboard. They are working a full day (9-5) tomorrow. Sherri & I are a little panicked about finding something for 5 workstudy students to do for 8 hours each when we still don't have a good handle on any kind of routine for ourselves. Some shelf-reading, some reserve processing, some scanning for course reserves for materials that faculty have brought with them, we'll show them how to help configure laptops. It's not that there is not enough to do, it's that we haven't had time to breathe to come up with a coherent plan for getting things done. Or training. I gotta say that I am SOOO glad I boarded with the Admin Team. If I had boarded with faculty/staff, I would have been sunk.

We "puttered around" in the ocean today. We had to pull out of port to let some cruise ships come in (they seem to be more important than we are) and I have a few photos but I'm too fried to go down to my cabin to get my camera. I'll put them up tomorrow. Just middle of sea photos. We're puttering again tomorrow. Puttering seems to be an official nautical term. I thought we were "anchoring" but we never did, we were moving the whole time. The weather was windy but pretty humid. So far, the motion doesn't bother me at all. I honestly didn't notice we were back in port until well after it turned out we had arrived.

I'm tired & working hard & sleeping hard. The excitement level here is insane. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when 700 students arrive on Sunday!

meetings, meetings, meetings

it's not just UVA. There are meetings at sea too. Crazy. Back-to-back-to-back today. You'd think I hadn't left Grounds. We had a morning meeting to introduce all of the support services and so Sherri & I did a library song and dance, which was well-received. Faculty seem very impressed with all of the UVA services & support. I've had a number of faculty that don't seem to believe that we really would have done scanning for them from just a citation list. We have to figure out how to get that across better. I had thought we made that clear, but I don't think the faculty really trusted it. I'll definitely leave David Gies & Jean with that one to ponder for the summer voyage. I'm having a great time working directly with the faculty. It's been a long time since I've done that kind of front-line support and I'm really enjoying it.

Then, we had a number of faculty meetings & a field trip meeting about the trips & roles & responsibilities of the trip leader. Including how to navigate the first aid kit. I seemed to be assigned as trip leader for two trips that I definitely don't recall volunteering to be trip leader for. I'm still pondering this one. One is the safari, which is deeply discounted (50%) if I lead it (definitely attractive), but not sure I really want to be in charge of a 20-some undergrads for a 4-day safari trip ...

We learned a bit about the community today: we have 702 students, 27 faculty, 35 staff, 17 life-long learners, and a good handful of spouses/children. We even have a 7-month old baby. We are officially a full ship. The average GPA for the students is 3.25. University of Colorado-Boulder is sending the most students (70), with a few other institutions ranking high (none of which currently includes UVA). A number of staff have UVA connections, undergrad degrees, graduate degrees, etc., but I am the only staff. I have met several folks who are from the Philadelphia area, including a couple from Belmont Hills who was quite amused to learn that I went to elementary school there.

We had a textbook meeting where we learned how we interface with the bookstore folks and we got ISE to agree to allow us to ship the textbooks that the library has for reserve back with the store's buy-backs at the end of the semester. That seemed like happy news. Also, after a meeting earlier in the week, ISE is now considering selling travel guides through the UVA Bookstore with the pre-ordered textbooks, where students could order them in advance and have them delivered magically to their cabins. No packing in their luggage. This would help the library as well.

The new library catalog system is still a no-go. Lots of people are banging their heads against walls on my behalf -- Kenny, the crew's IT system manager, Sal, from ISE, Jim Jokl from UVA -- but it's definitely worrisome.

That's all the news fit to print in libraryland. Sherri & I went into Nassau for dinner with an anthropology professor named Gloria & ate at a lovely Thai restaurant. The restaurant we originally wanted to go to was closed because Prince Edward was arriving for a 50th anniversary celebration of a Nassau bank. We saw him get out of the car but I didn't get any good photos. We walked around a bit and then came back to the ship. Tomorrow, we anchor out a ways so that another ship can come into port, but we're back at port around 3:00, so I'm hoping to get away for a little while and walk around some more. Seems I should find a beach. We have a bunch more orientation meetings in the morning and our workstudy students arrive in the evening.

I've added some photos to the map above. 'Night.

may your learning curves be vertical

today was another very full day. Not only have I not set foot on Bahamanian soil, but I was barely outside today at all. I'm hoping tomorrow. There was lots of library activity this morning & again more helpful volunteers. Everyone, it seems, wants to volunteer in the library. And then faculty/staff started boarding & the library got VERY busy with questions. 2 days ago, I knew nothing. Today, I know more than everybody else here! Which is still not very much, but definitely more than everybody else knows. I was giving directions around the ship (though, at least once, they turned out to be the wrong directions!) and sharing all my wealth of library & shipboard knowledge ...

then we had a big faculty/staff meeting where everyone was introduced. It was lovely to finally put faces with all the names of people I have emailed over the last three months. Everybody is incredibly friendly & meets with a hug more often than a handshake. Found that odd at first, but I'm getting used to it. I don't know any of these people, but I do. It's definitely weird. Leigh Grossman spoke at the introductory meeting from UVA. She was amazing -- I'm really liking her. Leigh is the Vice Provost for International Affairs & a doctor of pediatric infectious diseases (she had weighed in on my Yellow Fever vaccination debate last month as well). She said when her children are struggling with something, she tells them that their learning curve is vertical. Hang in, be ok, it's just that right now your learning curve is vertical. Leigh is sailing with us to Puerto Rico and then I’ll be the only UVA representation aboard. Most everyone else left today.

Then we had a reception & dinner & then a faculty meeting. And now I’m blogging. And then there’s a “social hour” in the faculty/staff lounge. And then sleep, maybe?

Tomorrow, the morning is packed with orientation programming but Sherri & I are hoping to see some of the Bahamas later in the day. Friday & Saturday, we are anchored during the day, so if we get off the ship we can’t get back on until the ship comes back into dock. Since faculty are trying to get organized and the library is hopping, that’s not going to work for us.

Scary & exciting & overwhelming & exhausting & exhilarating all at once … trying to take it all in … Leigh ended today with: “… Godspeed … and … may your learning curves be vertical ...” Yesterday, I was feeling pretty darn vertical, but today the library is much better prepared & watching the faculty and staff board, I’m feeling now much less so. Wondrous & amazing how that works.

Some pictures coming this morning into the Bahamas:









the Bahamanian ensign (though not our ship):