DANVILLE, KY-Seventeen Centre College recently completed three weeks of travel and study in the major cities and regions of India. The college sponsors an extensive study-abroad program, including residential programs in France, England and Latin America, but this was the school's first major trip to India.

The program was directed by Dr. Nayef Samhat, assistant professor of government and international relations. Samhat, whose wife is a native of India, focused the trip on a study of democracy and development during India's first 50 years as a democracy.

The students toured Delhi and Bombay, floated on the sacred River Ganges in Varanosi, rode elephants in Jaipur and visited a sacred Buddhist shrine in Bodhgaya. In an unusual twist of luck, they met a member of India's House of Parliament, Joe Varkey, who gave them an insider's tour and treated them to lunch in Parliament's private dining room. According to Samhat, the Indian House of Parliament is virtually closed to most visitors for security reasons.

Centre is committed to having its students travel and study abroad. The college maintains permanent, residential programs in England, France and Latin America, and each year around 120 students complete a full semester of study at one of those sites. Faculty members sponsor additional short-term programs, such as the India trip. During the recent winter term, another group of Centre students traveled to Barbados for field observations related to physiological psychology and animal behavior.

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