An opportunity to learn about new and foreign cultures firsthand and on location is available. Nicholls Europe is entering its 36th year in operation. The trip is for Nicholls students and faculty as well as their families and other members of the community.

James Barnidge, associate professor of history at Nicholls, is the moderator for the Nicholls Europe excursion.

He gave a few reasons why the program is active and has been for so long.

“The idea basically is that we live in south Louisiana,” Barnidge says. “And to be able to take the students out is one of the objectives of higher education, to take them out of this environment to show them what the rest of the world is like.”

Barnidge says it is important to learning history from another point of view, rather in a typical classroom setting.

“You look at things a lot differently if, say, you’re standing on the ground that the D-Day invasion took place, or where Napoleon fought the battle of Waterloo, or if you can see the Eiffel Tower and you’re listening to what’s being taught, you’re going to retain better.”

Last year’s trip took 94 visitors to Europe.

Since families and members of the non-Nicholls community are also welcome to attend, only 34 of last year’s attendants were Nicholls students.

Nicholls Europe attendants from past years have included many benefactors of the University as well as doctors and lawyers from the community and their families.

Barnidge explained the yearly process of filling the program and the challenge it may face this year.

“Last year, we filled our program before Christmas and we had to put people on a waiting list,” Barnidge says. “With the economy this year, we might wait a little longer before we fill it.”

Many visitors of past Nicholls Europe trips write to Barnidge with fond memories and good words of the trips they have taken.

June Benoit, health sciences senior from Thibodaux and an administrative coordinator for the Louisiana Center for Dyslexia and Related Disorders at Nicholls, participated in the program.

She shared some of her feelings about the trip.

“It was a vacation of a lifetime for me. It was a dream,” Benoit says. “You see so many things and do so many things for the amount that you pay for it.”

A specific memory Benoit remembers is one of a boat tour in Paris.

“My most vivid memory is the first time we went to the Eiffel Tower,” Benoit says. “We went on a boat tour, and just as we were approaching the tower, the lights came on and it was awesome. I didn’t know then that the lights came on only for ten minutes every hour.”

Another past participant of Nicholls Europe is Colleen Terhune, a history junior from New Orleans.

She said she remembers the entire trip as one long memory, not really singling out a specific experience.

“The whole trip, really. I mean, it’s five countries in two weeks. Who could forget that?”

She highly recommends the trip to all students.

“If you’re a history major, I definitely recommend going because you get a chance to immerse yourself in what we’ve been taught,” Terhune says.

Terhune was one of the students who brought her family along on the trip and advises it.

“My family had a suite in the hotel in Switzerland, and it was awesome. It was like a whole little apartment for us,” Terhune says. “If you want to go, its cool to bring family.”

The Nicholls Europe trip for 2009 will include visits to Venice and Verona in Italy, Alsace in France, the Swiss Alps and Lucerne in Switzerland, Innsbruck and Vienna in Austria, Prague in the Czech Republic and Bamberg and Wurzburg in Germany.

The 2009 Nicholls Europe trip will be a round trip from New Orleans, lasting 16 days from June 8-23. All who are interested may contact Barnidge.