Setting sail

Daniel Ehnbom, associate professor of art history, has been named the new academic dean for Semester at Sea’s 2008 around-the-world spring voyage. Semester at Sea features three voyages a year aboard its floating campus, the MV Explorer. U.Va. became the program’s academic sponsor in December 2005.

The 110-day voyage in spring 2008 is set to sail around the world, traveling from Nassau, Bahamas, on Jan. 23 and returning to Miami, Fla., via the Panama Canal on May 9. The voyage’s featured destinations include Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Hawaii and Costa Rica.

The voyage “gives the students a nice sense of completion because you actually do go all the way around the world,” says Ehnbom. “Part of the attraction of the program is that the structure of the voyage encourages a comparative perspective and understanding of the world, no matter what the students are studying.”