Former South African Anglican Archbishop and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu  AFP PHOTO

Tutu, 75, will address a group of approximately 700 alumni and staff who are traveling together for four days.

Semester at Sea, the United States’ original shipboard study abroad program, will kick off its 92nd voyage from Nassau, Bahamas on 4 February 2007. More than 700 college students and an international faculty will spend their spring term sailing around the world together, attending class onboard and doing cross-cultural fieldwork in ports of call. Tutu will be present for the entire 100+ day voyage, serving as Distinguished Lecturer in Residence and interacting with the shipboard community on a daily basis.

“I have had and will have again this coming spring the good fortune to be a small part of a wonderful experiment in education called Semester at Sea,” said Archbishop Tutu, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his work to end apartheid. “The mission of this grand experiment has been to foster greater intercultural understanding by exposing its participants—young and old, students and faculty—to people and cultures around the world while providing them with a sea-going classroom in which to study and absorb what they’ve seen and learned.”

After departing Nassau, Semester at Sea will visit San Juan, Puerto Rico; Salvador, Brazil; Cape Town, South Africa; Port Louis, Mauritius; Chennai, India; Penang, Malaysia; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Hong Kong; Qingdao, China; Kobe, Japan; and Honolulu, Hawaii before finally docking in San Diego, California, USA on May 14.

Founded in 1963, approximately 45,000 students from approximately 1,500 different institutions have studied and traveled to 60 countries with Semester at Sea and its predecessor programs.