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By Phil Williams
pwilliam@franklin.uga.edu
When David Stewart got to Athens in early January, he felt somewhat like an adventurer to the New World.
“It was very daunting,” says the 19-year-old native of Glasgow, Scotland. “Everything is a lot bigger here, but it’s been my lifelong ambition to come to America.”
 Stewart is the first student to arrive in Athens as part of a new exchange program between the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and UGA, and when he set foot here in early January, the university hadn’t yet opened for the semester. Soon, however, he was in the middle of classes in history and political science.
Stewart’s counterpart, Pam Green, a UGA junior who grew up in Athens and graduated from Clarke Central High School, talked with him in late January, just before she departed for her semester in Wales, where she will be studying sociology and the Welsh language.
“I’m nervous but very excited,” she said, and then asked David what she might expect in the seacoast town of Aberystwyth.
“Harsh weather,” he said, laughing.
The program is the first of its kind between UGA and the University of Wales, a school much smaller than UGA snuggled into a town far smaller than Athens. The exchange was developed by Elissa R. Henken, a professor in the department of English. Anne Allen, studies-abroad adviser for the Office of International Education, has taken on the task of guiding the students through the paperwork.
Henken is a folklorist and a Celtic scholar, and she reads, writes and speaks Welsh, which is spoken by a quarter of the Welsh population. She knows the University of Wales quite well, since she finished her master’s degree there.
“This program is a very good way to have the students from both schools really immersed in local cultures,” says Henken. “The University of Wales is the oldest of the Welsh universities, and there are marvelous resources there and in Aberystwyth, including the National Library of Wales. This town is very significant in the cultural and political life of Wales.”
Stewart, an American studies major, hopes to learn as much as possible about the country during his stay here.
“During spring break, I’m going to go to Los Angeles, where I have some friends who were formerly exchange students at the University of Wales,” he says. “And I will try to get to Washington, D.C., too, to see some friends there.”
Stewart credits Anne Allen with “all but saving my life” when he arrived before classes began and found the dorms closed. Allen hooked him up with Steve and Glory Griffin of Watkinsville, who have in the past helped in making exchange students welcome to the area. (Glory Griffin works as a budget analyst in the School of Health and Human Performance.) They helped Stewart with his needs before school started.
Green has never been to Great Britain before, but Wales will offer a good match for her interests.
“I’m interested in anthropology, history and folklore,” she says. “I’m also a performer. I love to sing, tell stories and speak in public.”
Students at the University of Wales have a 22-day spring break, and during that time Pam plans to visit Scotland, Ireland, Italy and Greece and to see every museum along the way.
The head of the English department at the University of Wales had visited UGA in 1997, and he and UGA English department head Anne Williams decided an exchange program would be an excellent idea. The natural coordinator for the program, they knew, would be Henken, who took the lead.
The students on both sides of the exchange pay tuition to their home universities (eligible UGA students can use the HOPE scholarship) and then pay for room and board at the host university, which is comparable for the two institutions. Travel costs are extra. Because it is a direct one-for-one student exchange, space is very limited, and only one or two UGA students can go each year. Consequently, the selection criteria are stringent. UGA students must be at least juniors in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and have a 3.2 grade average to be considered.
For now, the exchange takes place in spring semester, but it may soon be possible for a UGA student to spend the entire year in Wales.
David and Pam are staying in touch with home on the telephone, but both are using e-mail considerably as well.
“My dad’s not been much for that kind of technology, but he’s learning,” says David with a laugh. “They’ve mostly just been checking to see if I’m all right. I tell them I’m fine.”
More info
Deadline for next year’s exchange program: March 17.
For further information, call Elissa R. Henken at 542-9262 or Anne Allen at 542-7903.
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