Beyond Borders: The International Education Programs at Loomis
By Bretton Pratt ’27
Contributor

Last month, The Alvord Center for Global and Environmental Studies announced five new destinations for the 2024-2025 school year. Each trip allows unique learning opportunities and students to pursue meaningful connections with people and environments beyond Loomis. The trips are accompanied by faculty members with about 15 students.
During spring break, the Alvord Center will offer two trips from March 7th to the 17th. A trip to Morocco will focus on comparative history and language studies, and a trip to Spain will focus on Spanish and human geography.
Students who attend the Morocco trip will travel to the cities and countryside of Rabat, Fes, Chefchaouen, and Casablanca. There, they will explore the intersection of tradition and modernity through the archway between Europe and Africa. In Spain, students will visit Granada, Córdoba, Málaga, and the surrounding countryside to experience the rich culture. In Spain, students will learn environmental and social topics by witnessing the impacts of tourism, underemployment, and drought firsthand.
In the summer, from June 4th to the 14th, students are offered a trip to Hawaii and Greece. The Hawaii trip is centered around indigenous culture and environmental studies. Through hiking, restoration efforts, and interacting with local guides, students will experience firsthand the Indigenous slogan of life: “Living Sustainably on Island Earth.” In tandem with this year's storytelling theme, the Greece trip will explore Greek Mythology and how stories of the past shape today. Students who go to Greece will also visit a blue zone to embark on a journey at the heart of sustainability.
Around the same time, from June 4th to the 13th, students will be offered to go to the Northeast Kingdom and Connecticut River cruise. Students will depart from the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont by canoe and travel down the river to our campus in Windsor. Students will have ecological and cultural conversations along the journey to learn more about environmental action. Marley Matlack, the Director of the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies, explains how each theme of the programs is to capture and make a “connection to the Loomis curriculum.”
Each program study and theme focuses on collaborating with other centers and departments around campus to offer students a new learning style. Mrs. Matlack explains how “[teachers] know that Loomis students are fantastic in the classroom… but this is the type of education you can’t get within the four walls of a classroom.” She stresses the importance of global interactions, witnessing global events in the locations where they occur, and going out of one’s comfort zone to acquire new life experiences.
Ms. Matlack hopes that this year’s trips will “ignite a passion to be more curious, to think more critically, and to want to do new things.” These programs not only foster environmental and global leaders but open up new channels for seeing the world.
Blair Sontag ’27 had the opportunity to travel with the Alvord Center to London last summer and says that her experience through the program changed her experience back on campus this school year, as it “gave [her] such a deeper perspective and understanding of life outside of the Loomis bubble.” Blair’s words are a testament to the Alvord Center trips' transformative impact and provide excitement and anticipation for this year’s trips.