PSU Magazine Spring 1998

Not every port was o peaceful. In Egypt, as 30 of the ship' community stood in line at a ticket booth to enter the temple at Luxor, terrorists opened fire within- killing 60 touri ts. Outside, panic ensued . Vieira was in Cairo when he heard the news. He quickly con tacted the U.S. Embassy and learned that none of the ship's community was believed among the dead, although for hours some uncertainty exi ted . Vieira worried that as a group of mo tly U.S. citizens, they might be targets of further assaults or that the hip it elf might be a target. With that fear gnawing at his heart, Vieira worked nonstop over the next 24 hour to collect the 800 students, fac ulty, staff, and crew of the Universe Explorer who were dispersed throughout the country on tours and on their own. From headquarters in a Cairo hotel, he coordinated with the Emba sy and tour agents to round up the groups with known itineraries and quarantine them in hotels wherever they were, before arranging safe trave l to Cairo. There the entire group was put into a caravan of buse complete with armed Egyptian militia and decoy bu e . Eventually they made it back to the "great white mother" as the gleaming cruise ship had been dubbed early in the voyage. 18 P U MAGAZINE SPRI G 1998 Although they continued without further terrorist incident, the experi – ence brought home to Vieira that much of the world lives in a land cape that never feels entirely safe. utting Egypt behind them, the community of the SS Universe Explorer steamed out of the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean ea and eventually to Greece. There Vieira wa to uncharacteristically cast ff his responsibilities with a spur-of– the-moment dec ision . It began with a day trip to the Greek islands. The Vieiras along with several students boarded a ferry fo r an excursion to a nearby island. Intending to stay only the day, they took no more than the clothes on their backs. After wandering the G reek ruin and the small town at their fir t top, the group decided during a hillside picnic of bread and chee e to hop a ferry to the next island. They arrived as dusk was blooming over the Aegean ea and decided not to go back. For the next two days-without agenda, reser– vations, or toothbrushes-they trave led the i lands of the archipelago, eventu– ally happening upon Hydra, an island deliberately maintained as it ha been fo r hundreds of years with no cars, no modern buildings, and no neon signs. "We were in the same clothes for all that time, but it ju t didn't matter," say Vieira. "All the things that would have been a problem or a concern , weren't. We simply embraced the ambi guity of having no structured agenda. It was an amazing experience." For Vieira, the 100-day voyage of the S Universe Explorer was fill ed with amaz ing experiences-and a sen e of personal and communal growth. "Thi was the biggest test of leader– ship I've ever undertaken," says Vieira. "It wa a ignifi cant responsibility, and I was challenged in many ways. I feel a tremendous ati faction at having done the job and done it as we ll as was po sible fo r me to do. My criteria wa that student would have a good an experience as they hoped to have– and I think they did . "The semester wa a wonderful and rigorous combination of teaching and learning, both in the classroom and in the experi ences we had," adds Vi eira. Student who were hes itant to venture off the hip during the ea rly port calls eventually became confident adventurers, lea rning to challenge themselves with the unknown and learning that they could dea l with it, says Vieira . And they learned to appre– ciate other culture in a visceral way-not just a textbook apprec iation. "But my most compelling memory," Vieira says, "was that we became a community. Through the many small, wonderful thing that occurred over the course of our trip, we transformed from 800 strangers into a caring, concerned, interconnected community." e points to the impromptu party student gave to thank an 80-year– old couple for all their little kindness; the 12-year-old boy who served as a computer expert for the retiree passenger ; tudents willing to share their concerns with each other; and everyone willing to debate an is ue even if they couldn't agree on the answer. "It was a quilt of all those things," says Vieira. "Trust, love, the ability to di agree and argue and come back and talk about it aga in- that's the e sence of higher education, in many ways. It's the kind of community we search for, and one we don't normally achieve." 0