Since the University of Chicago’s Center in Paris opened in 2003, it has given undergraduates the chance to experience quarter-long, faculty-led programs that transport the College curriculum and faculty abroad to consider the impact of texts, events and ideas in the places that bore them.
Nearly 4,600 students have studied abroad at the Center in Paris since 2003 and Sébastien Greppo, the Center’s executive director, leads the team on the ground that supports undergraduates throughout the year.
This fall feels a little different—in a new home that nearly triples the size of the old Center and dramatically increases capacity to host students, faculty, visiting scholars and public events. While students started classes in the new building earlier this month, the official opening of the John W. Boyer Center in Paris will take place in November.
Before the festivities, we sat down with Greppo to look back on the history of UChicago’s programs in Paris, and what he’s looking forward to with the opening of the new building.
You helped open the original Center in Paris—what has changed the most?
Over 20 years we went from one program and 25 students per quarter to six programs and 125 students per quarter. I think we have now entered the industrial age of Study Abroad!
We started with the “obvious” programs you would expect abroad—like Civ—over the years we’ve grown to include subjects like Neuroscience or Astronomy, Urbanism or Gender Civ to name a few. Our undergrads now have many more options, giving students from a range of disciplines a way to have an international experience during their time as an undergraduate.
The weekly excursions which build upon class content have become more and more elaborate thanks to the variety of new programs and the limitless imagination of our faculty. On any given Friday, we might see our six different programs traveling to six different destinations in Paris, France or Europe. Our students regularly visit the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva, the World War I trenches of Verdun, the European Court of Law in Luxembourg, attend an opera in Paris or learn about the history of enslavement by visiting the port city of Nantes, among many other destinations.
What is the challenging project you’ve had to tackle over the years?
There is not one specific challenge or surprise that stands out over the last 20 years.
However, I have learned that you always have to prepare for the unexpected. I can think of the sleepless nights when we had to evacuate 18 students from Cairo in 2011 and arrange for them to be housed and continue their coursework in Paris. I also unfortunately remember the long night I spent with my colleague Xin Miao tracking down all our students to make sure they were safe during the Paris terrorist attacks of November 2015.
What is your favorite memory from your time at the current Center?
I can’t really say that I have a favorite memory, but what I treasure most about working at the Center is the closeness of the staff and our collegial relationships.
I try to create an office environment where I work alongside all of my colleagues. They know that during events I’ll be there—whether that means moving tables, taking out trash or brewing urns of coffee for an event.
Lunch breaks are important in France and I am always happy when many of us can eat together somewhere in the Center. I hope our “all hands on deck attitude” will live on in the new place.
What are you most looking forward to with the opening of the new Center?
The increased amount of space that the new Center will provide, will allow us to more easily fulfill what I see as our three main missions: offering classes for our undergraduates, giving office and meeting space for researchers, and hosting conferences. In what we can now call our “old Center,” it was difficult to organize all this simultaneously without scheduling and space conflicts. In the new Center, each of these activities has its clearly defined space. We have multiple classrooms including a lab, a research institute and two large rooms for events. We will be able to host more events, any day of the week, even when classes are in session.
I am also curious to see whether our building, designed by renowned Chicago architect, Jeanne Gang, will become a local landmark that will attract people who don’t necessarily know the University of Chicago. I often regretted during the last 20 years that our neighborhood, which was built from scratch starting in 1995, did not really have any buildings that stood out—other than the French National Library. This is finally beginning to change: two years ago, a Jean Nouvel building located very close to ours was inaugurated and got a lot of attention, I hope ours will be the next one!