LT '10 tour scrapped--maybe next year?

Unfortunately we didn't get enough students this spring for the Lithuanian study tour. The post-mortem points to a lack of branding ("...and Lith-u-a-nia is where?"), funding issues (study grants have dried up, and loan requirements are such that a separate new loan application would be required of interested parties), and general economic malaise (students have to work more this summer to pay their bill from last semester so they can register late for next semester)... It sounds like over half the proposed trips for the college won't run, so there's cold comfort in knowing we weren't alone. Still, though!

But we're going to try again in 2011, this time with a more systemic outreach to other campuses nation-wide that have a stake in things Baltic (Indiana, Ohio State, Washington, Yale, etc.) as well as Boston-area schools that might have interested students (Harvard, Emerson, Stonehill, etc.).

And in the meantime, as I start to hunker down for the upcoming joint Baltic / Scandinavian studies conference next weekend, I find myself daydreaming about a winter trip to Norway, centered around the 2011 Tromsø International Film Festival. I'm afraid it would cost 25-50% more than the proposed Lithuania trip, but maybe the lure of an international film festival (and even the Northern Lights?!) will get some folks to commit to an arctic expedition before the start of spring semester...