School Is "in" for Summer Travelers Who Want Something Different

You're undoubtedly aware that I'm greatly in favor of learning vacations, the summer interludes when you return to the equivalent of your college days, to the liberal arts. The two outstanding vacations of that sort are the Oxford Experience at Oxford University in England, and the Cambridge University International Summer School in Cambridge, England. But nearly all the most popular courses in those two summer programs have been full since April, as I had occasion to learn this past week.
 
But that leaves two U.S. learning vacations that are both the full equivalent of anything England has to offer.
 
One of them is Cornell's Adult University in Ithaca New York. Its one-week courses -- and you can stay for either one, two, three or four weeks -- run from July 8 to August 4, are attended by every sort of person, include all three meals daily, an afternoon cocktail hour, and cover subjects ranging from classical music to wine tasting and the literary works of the Bronte Sisters. There are literally dozens of different courses, all on the Cornell campus, with lodgings in an ultra-modern student residence. It's one of the most exhilarating summer vacations -- I gloried in it last summer -- and you can learn more by going to a website for Cornell's Adult University (www.sce.cornell.edu/cau).
 
And then there's an equally profound series of one-week summer vacations at St. John's College, which has two campuses -- one in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the other in Annapolis, Maryland. Both of them run summer sessions for adults -- learning without examinations, without grades, simply pursued for the love of learning, and involving the reading and discussion of the great books of the Western tradition. The Santa Fe session runs for three weeks from July 8 to July 27, the Annapolis session runs for one week from June 4 to June 8. And you can learn more by googling "summer classics" at St. John's.