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International study opportunities, long a priority at Colby, took an important step forward this fall as two of three new collaborative Colby, Bates and Bowdoin centers opened abroad. The CBB London Center, administered by Colby, began its inaugural term September 6, and the CBB Quito Center in Equador, run by Bates, also opened this fall. A center administered by Bowdoin in Capetown, South Africa, will offer courses beginning in September 2000.

The CBB study abroad consortium was developed with the help of an $886,500 award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The three colleges proposed the collaboration to make the study abroad experience more coherent and to coordinate it better with the home campuses' curricula. By pooling their resources, Colby, Bates and Bowdoin are able to maintain three programs that meet their collective standards, giving students from all three institutions a wider range of choices than one college could offer by itself.

The CBB London Center is Colby's most ambitious satellite initiative to date, said Jon Weiss, director of academic affairs and off-campus study. Colby established a corporation–Colby College U.K. Ltd.–and purchased a five-story, 18th-century building at 19 Bloomsbury Square, near the British Museum and the London School of Economics. Since renovations won't be complete until this winter, the two dozen students in the inaugural semester are in rented space a few blocks away. Occupancy and a dedication of the Bloomsbury Square property will take place in January.

One goal of the consortium, and the off-campus study program more broadly, is to balance the benefits of cultural immersion with the maintenance of Colby's academic standards. Foreign study usually is a powerful experience for students, but often it is poorly integrated with a student's program of study, and many programs are not as rigorous as officials at Colby, Bates and Bowdoin would like. The CBB programs are an innovative attempt to provide the cathartic experience of living abroad along with the academic rigor that is a hallmark at all three Maine colleges

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