Director's Adieu

I would like to thank many people for helping to make the F&M in Paris program a success this past semester.  First and foremost, I want to express my gratitude to and admiration for the eight extraordinary young women with whom I shared this past semester in Paris.  Their intellectual curiosity, hard work, and openness to new experiences and challenges made them a true pleasure to teach.  I am proud of all they accomplished and learned during their time here.  As a group, they were generous in spirit and in deed, as demonstrated on the last day of class when they surprised me with beautiful roses and the very special treat of macarons from the famous Lenôtre bakery.  Merci beaucoup à tous!

I would also like to thank the staff at ACCENT, in particular Jim Benn, for providing us invaluable logistical and practical support throughout the semester.  At Franklin & Marshall College, Vice President for Planning and Vice Provost Alan Caniglia played an instrumental role in making the program run, as did Associate Dean for International Program Sue Mennicke, who offered wise counsel on many an occasion.  In the Provost's Office, Mary Sakellaris provided crucial support in keeping our paperwork straight.  I am indebted to Assistant Professor of French Carrie Landfried for proposing and coordinating our collaboration with her Connections class on campus.  Members of the Chemistry, Government, and French Departments, especially Cindy Yetter-Vassot, generously facilitated recruitment for the program, for which I remain grateful.  None of this would have been possible, of course, without Professor Kerry Whiteside, who founded and directed the program beginning in 2006.  The students and I were all beneficiaries of his willingness to share insights, experiences, and expertise.  Kerry, nous le remercions beaucoup!

Last but not least, I would like to thank our many blog readers.  When F&M's Director of Instructional and Emerging Technologies Teb Locke patiently introduced me to the world of blogging, for which I thank him, I had no idea that our blog would be so widely read.  We now have over 3000 hits and, as I like to tell the students, those cannot all be me checking for typographical errors.  It has been a privilege to share our adventures with you.  To the parents, you have sent us wonderful young women whose lives have been broadened and enriched by their experiences here, none of which would have been possible without your encouragement and support.  To our friends and colleagues, thank you for keeping up with us as we discovered Paris and, in the process, important new things about ourselves.

Encore merci à tout le monde et adieu!

Maria Mitchell