WCU en Valencia and Valencia Experience 2019

 Humanities at WCU      August 29, 2019

Since 2010, a number of WCUSpanish students have made the city of Valencia, Spain, their home for the summer, and 2019 was no exception. Under the direction of Dr. Alberto Centeno-Pulido and Dr. Mark Couture, 13 WCU students spent a month immersing themselves in Spanish culture. Highlights of the course included a day trip to Madrid, to visit El Prado and Reina Sofía museums, a visit to the Roman theater and castle in Sagunt; a day in Xàtiva, where students visited a medieval castle and a trip to the region of Utiel-Requena, where we visited Bodegas Hispano-Suizas and learned about the art of wine-making. 

During their time in Spain, students lived with host families and enjoyed some delicious Spanish home-cooking (which seems to be the main take-away—pun intended—of the whole experience, according to the students themselves). They had the chance to learn first-hand what daily life is like for many Spaniards, and, in the process, they have created longlasting bonds with their Spanish "parents and siblings." The academic schedule included a grammar class in the mornings, as well as history and culture class in the afternoons, in which students walked around the city to learn about its history and visited some of its most emblematic buildings and structures. This class also included a talk about the Spanish healthcare system, hosted by Dr. Enrique Rodríguez Borja, which led to a very interesting exercise of comparison and contrast between the healthcare systems of both Spain and the US.

This course, however, was not the only activity for  WCUSpanish in Valencia this summer. Summer 2019 meant the inaugural trip of our Experience program. This program is the result of an idea of our own Dr. Lori Oxford and a fantastic partnership with the Division of Educational Outreach at WCU. With this non-credit bearing course, the Department of World Languages has been able to establish a fund for study abroad scholarships for its students. In this inaugural trip, the participants enjoyed most of the same day trips as the students from  the WCU en Valencia program (except Madrid).

Participants also took part a cooking class, in which they were able to prepare the quintessential Valencian dish: paella valenciana. The Experience's first group was small enough to allow the travelers to really get to know one another: two Spanish alumni, a colleague from Educational Outreach, and two fantastic sisters from Georgia, plus Dr. Oxford and Dr. Centeno-Pulido, as well as their daughter, Ms. Olivia Centeno-Oxford. Check out the write-up from The Reporter.

Planning for the next edition of the Valencia Experience trip has already begun for next summer. If you want to know more, please contact either Dr. Lori Oxford or Dr. Alberto Centeno-Pulido. We hope you can join us next time around... and remember, you will be contributing to a great cause!