The center is conveniently located near the theater district and Parliament (above). "All the teachers here use London as a laboratory," said Jon Weiss, Colby's director of off-campus study.

Students in the center's inaugural year gave it rave reviews as well. "I have nothing but praise for it," said Rob Henzi '01, who was in the first-semester comparative government program. While Americans rarely get access to the top professors when they enroll in foreign universities, he said, "you really can't complain when [Colby's Distinguished Presidential Professor of American Government G. Calvin] Cal Mackenzie is teaching two of your courses."

Despite being in the comparative politics curriculum, Henzi said, "I kind of latched onto the theater class, because there were always extra tickets." Besides taking in plays he visited museums and particularly liked The Tate. Hyde Park is near the student flats, he said, so he and other students would take blankets and books there to study.

Bowdoin junior Adam Wong and Colby's Justin Paré '01 and Jarrod Dumas '01, all at the center for the spring semester, said many students see international study as a bit of a "free ride." But they were eager to contrast that perception with their own experiences in the CBB-London program.

Mackenzie said his students took advantage of the opportunities that the city presented–rock and jazz clubs, theater, pubs and museums. They also took advantage of inexpensive flights (under $100 round trip) to Mediterranean countries. But, he said, there came a point in the semester when they realized they had papers to write and exams to pass and that the work was comparable to what they would expect back in Maine. "The big thing about these programs," Mackenzie said, "is that the students get grades that count. If not, they might bail and go off to Italy at the end of the semester."

Because the academic program is so demanding, the center anticipates many of the students' needs and takes care of odds and ends that might take an inordinate amount of students' time if they had to work out the details. The center leases a group of furnished flats near Hyde Park in a neighborhood with a large Arab population. It has a relationship with a bank for establishing accounts, and it provides tickets for transportation on the London Underground, for example. So instead of using their spare time on a longer commute or trying to get a plumber, students are likely to head for the British Museum, almost next door to the center, even if it's just for an hour, said Mackenzie.

The center also provides a valuable support system when things go wrong, as they sometimes do. In February a Colby student was hit by a taxi as he crossed the street, and he spent a night in the public health-care hospital. The following day Morris arranged treatment through a private physician and facilitated the student's return to the U.S. for follow-up care.

Faculty participation is another innovation in the CBB collaborative. Professors from all three schools serve on steering committees for the programs, and those who want to teach at the centers submit proposals for units they would run in London, Quito or Cape Town. Competition for the positions has been so stiff that it has come down to "tough choices" selecting among all of the programs that professors have proposed, Weiss said.

Having the faculty broadly engaged and invested in the CBB programs should better integrate the study-abroad experience with what goes on back on the Maine campuses, says Colby President Bill Cotter. That's been a goal of his–to make sure that pre-travel preparation and post-travel follow-up maximize the value of a student's experience abroad. It's not unique to have resident faculty in study-abroad programs, Cotter says. But the level of control that CBB faculty have in setting up the programs they will teach at the center is unprecedented.

The same value that students receive from international experience accrues to the professors as well. "There is no way you can read about or describe another culture without living in it," said Cotter, who lived and worked in Nigeria and Colombia and traveled extensively in Africa before coming to Colby in 1979. Living abroad, one notices the differences in how people organize their lives, how poverty and class structures affect individuals and nations, Cotter says. It gives students and faculty a view of their own country as seen by the non-Americans they encounter. International experience prepares students for the increasingly interactive and cooperative global economy, and the insights gained tend to make people better U.S. citizens when they return to America, he said.

Despite Colby's efforts to provide the best faculty, facilities and student services in the world on its own campus in Waterville, students frequently cite the semester they spent abroad as the experience that transformed them. If a less-than-rigorous study-abroad program compromises the value of that international experience, it's an opportunity at least partially wasted. Now, with the CBB program blending the three schools' academic standards with the catalyst of world experience, the full promise of international education is likely to be fulfilled for increasing numbers of Colby, Bates and Bowdoin students.

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