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Spain study-abroad program celebrates 10th anniversary in new facility with ancient walls
For students in FSU's Valencia program, ancient history is more than a class. It's the experience of living--eating, sleeping, studying and socializing--in the shelter of the stones of a thousand-year-old city wall that's a part of the newly opened Valencia Study Center. Stretching more than two stories and meandering through the buildings, incorporated into modern-day walls, the Arabic wall stands as a silent sentry, speaking a timeless testimony to the students who reach out and touch this resident treasure.
FSU's new Valencia Study Center opened its doors as the program celebrated its 10th anniversary with the university's celebrated International Programs, now 50 years old. Housed in two historic buildings in the heart of Valencia, just behind the landmark Serrano Towers, the facility contains not only part of the original Roman and Arabic walls, but also several 14th century tanning tanks. The buildings, which have been completely renovated while carefully preserving their unique history, contain housing, classrooms and administrative space.
If the wall's stones could speak, they'd tell stories of life in Spain's third-largest city in the days of Caesar Augustus. They'd wax nostalgic about Valencia's golden age, when, streets bustling with commerce and culture, it was the London or New York of its day.
With its more than 2,000 year history, Valencia is an inspired choice for overseas study, and students enrolled in FSU's Study Center interact with the ancient on a daily basis. And when they leave the Center, they encounter a city laden with Roman, Moorish and Greek remnants. Its Hispanic cultural richness is visible everywhere in art and architecture, and Valencia's many museums are a time-spanning trove of artifacts, including ancient Greek and Iberian ceramics and prehistoric fossils. No wonder Valencia, according to FSU International Programs Director Jim Pitts, is one of FSU's most sought-after international programs.
And now it's even more alluring.
As part of the 10th anniversary celebration in May, FSU President T.K. Wetherell and Juan Julia Igual, president of the Universida Politecnica de Valencia, signed an agreement to promote academic, scientific and cultural cooperation between the two institutions. Now, FSU students in Valencia may enroll in classes at UPV, which will give them access to science, engineering and business courses.
Additionally, students of UPV may now take classes at both FSU's Study Center in Valencia and the Tallahassee campus. This agreement enhances an earlier accord between the two universities to foster the exchange of students, staff and researchers and to expand collaboration.
Standing above the glass-protected tanning tanks, the ancient wall behind him, Wetherell raised his glass at an anniversary gala reception to toast the new facility and its programs.
Valencia has been the permanent home of FSU's year-round Spain program since 2000, when it moved from the small seaside town of Torremolinos, where the program was established in 1997. In the past 10 years, this FSU study-abroad location has served more than 2,500 students and offered 600 different classes taught by some 60 instructors.
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