The Consortium Program, established in 2003, offers to students of Macalester, Pomona and Swarthmore Colleges (and their affiliated institutions) the opportunity to study the South African environment in a contemporary world so powerfully affected by technological innovation, trade, movement of people, culture and ideas. The Program takes place in a world-class university where science and social science faculties, along with professors from Consortium institutions, provide an educational program that facilitates the challenges of living and studying in a foreign country and also meets the high academic standards required at our institutions. Hence we incorporate in the program strong elements of cultural emersion and cross-cultural learning, often linked to current and actively-debated issues in environment studies, with rigorous work in social and natural sciences. This learning is facilitated through the program�s location at the University of Cape Town (UCT) within the Department of Environmental Geographical Science, with its world-class faculty. Cape Town itself is a breathtakingly beautiful city nestled against Table Mountain at the southern tip of Africa.

The program is built around a directed-study project undertaken by each student that includes extensive field work, overseen by a faculty mentor at UCT. Supporting the directed-study project are two regular UCT courses, thus providing Consortium students the opportunity to learn side by side with South African students. Consortium students choose the two courses from a list after advising by the program�s Academic Affairs Coordinator. An introductory �core� seminar includes a number of field trips, guest lectures, and discussions on environmentally-related topics with both Consortium and South African students. The program aims for students from our schools to realize the central educational goals shared by our institutions: critical analytical thinking about important issues and enhanced empathy for a variety of disciplines, cultures and problems.

During January and early February 2008, the core seminar �Globalization and the Environment,� led by the Visiting Consortium professor and faculty at the University of Cape Town, seeks to accomplish a number of goals. First, it provides an intense learning experience bringing students together in the Program along with at least two graduate students at UCT. Second, it is multidisciplinary, with readings and discussions of issues of science: biology, botony, chemisty, geodetic and geographic science; along with central social sciences that study the environment and globalization: economics, political science, and sociology. The seminar meets largely during the �summer break� at UCT and precedes the two regular UCT courses and the directed-study project. It is linked to the culminating directed-study project, helping students to learn and teach each other from their intense experience of their fieldwork. Since its inaugural session in 2004, the 38 student alumni have praised the core seminar in written evaluations.

The overall educational purpose of this program of student learning is to have its participants experience the enduring lure, durability, and fragility of the natural world and its interconnections with human activity. To accomplish this, students grapple with materials drawn from philosophical, scientific, social, aesthetic, and ethical perspectives.

The Program, through the study-abroad offices at the three Consortium colleges, is now gathering applications for the fifth year of the program. Applications are due at the individual schools in early October, 2007; see your school�s Consortium representative for application details and deadlines.