Transformative Travel Experiences for Marist Students Return

After several attempts to reschedule, nearly two years later the trip took place in November 2021. The Invisible Man class trip of January 2020 was one of the last Marist student trips to occur before the pandemic. After a two-year hiatus, the trip was offered once more in January 2022 for students in the course Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man led by Fine Arts Chair Dr. Michael Bieze. Marist students welcomed the return of travel within our country and abroad, as these transformative journeys extend the important lessons they learn in the classroom through first-hand experiences.  

Over the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday weekend, Dr. Bieze led students from his Invisible Man class on a trip to New York City. AP Art History is a prerequisite for this course centered on Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, a book which reflects upon the American Dream and race. The class takes this trip for the purpose of walking in the Invisible Man’s footsteps from Harlem to Centre Street.

When planning the trip, Dr. Bieze selects shows and activities that connect to the novel and ideas and questions explored in the book such as “What is America?” and “What is the American Dream?” This year’s trip included a walking tour through Harlem as they traced the path of the Invisible Man; lunch at the soul food restaurant Sylvia’s; visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, and Edge, the highest sky deck in the Western Hemisphere located at Hudson Yards; a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge; and seeing the Broadway musicals “Hadestown” and “American Utopia.” Students explored all areas of the Metropolitan Museum thanks to a scavenger hunt designed by Dr. Bieze to help direct them through the galleries.

Maddie Lamm ’22 said, “A main message of Invisible Man is the importance of diversity and the negative effects of stereotypes, especially those based on race. During our trip, we experienced the racial and cultural diversity of the city and witnessed the benefits that these many perspectives provide. One of the Broadway shows we saw, ‘American Utopia,’ was all about how bringing people together from different backgrounds creates art with which everyone can connect. Being in New York City also allowed us to visit many of the places mentioned in the novel. Physically seeing the YMCA where the Invisible Man stayed and the street he walked at the end of the novel further connected me to the world that Ellison describes in Invisible Man… I really enjoyed being able to travel safely again and learn about Invisible Man in an immersive way.”

Kate Reaves ’22 also appreciated the experience of visiting New York and walking through parts of the city that were new to her. Kate said, “I really enjoyed the trip because it had a good mixture of learning, free time, and fun, so it was a very balanced weekend. Most of all, this trip deepened my understanding of the novel. Seeing Harlem especially helped me to understand a lot of the cultural references that Ellison made throughout the novel. While traveling during a pandemic shifted our plans a bit, we still got to visit many places within New York that were important to understanding the novel.”

 

Dr. Bieze noted that it was a quieter New York City than in previous years and remarked how buildings required identification and vaccine cards to gain entry. These differences, however, did not negatively affect this Invisible Man trip, which brought the novel to life and enhanced student learning.

The recent Bearing Witness trip took place during last fall’s Thanksgiving week. Bearing Witness is a program that takes Mr. Brendan Murphy’s seminar course History and the Holocaust beyond the classroom walls with a trip to Munich, Prague, and Krakow. The mission statement of the program states: “Bearing Witness is a humanizing endeavor, a journey through the past that helps us reconsider how we understand ourselves as human beings. It’s a program that engages the heart, develops better judgement, and teaches empathy. With their natural energy, curiosity, and wonder, students in Bearing Witness are challenged to cultivate the qualities of heart and spirit necessary to live a life in a way that matters, in a way that makes a difference.”

To make this humbling endeavor come to life for students who have taken the course in the past three years, Mr. Murphy has planned three Bearing Witness trips during the 2021-2022 academic year. After bringing seniors (who took the course as sophomores) to Europe in November, he will travel with sophomores in March and juniors in June. Remarking on the first of this year’s three trips, Mr. Murphy described how everyone was slightly nervous about the travel protocols and getting tested for COVID-19 before returning to the United States. After careful planning, however, the trip was as successful as ever. He said, “When we got there, it felt like any other trip. We did have to be masked in certain places, but we didn’t find it disruptive.”

He added, “The students were amazing. They had been waiting for this experience for two years. There was energy and, in the end, an agreement that it was worth the wait. I was so pleased with how they took to the experience.”

Mr. Murphy discussed how impressed he is every year with the level of intentionality that Marist students bring to Bearing Witness.

For Lucy Kalbas ’22, the trip brought her experiences and fellowship with her peers that she will never forget. Lucy said, “The Bearing Witness program allows students to feel and experience what we have learned in the classroom. The Holocaust is an unimaginable tragedy that cannot be measured in the classroom alone… Not only did I learn more about the details of the Holocaust, but I got to experience it. The shoes and hair in Auschwitz, the gas chamber in Dachau, the memorials of destroyed Jewish synagogues. We were right there… the feeling is indescribable. We were able to journal about our experiences and put our emotions into words. Mr. Murphy also allowed for moments of relief and laughter. We enjoyed meals, free time, shopping, and other touristy things all over Europe. When I returned to Atlanta, I shared my journal with my grandfather who had friends fight and die in World War II. This ability to connect with him and share this emotional experience was truly unforgettable.”

The trip was similarly illuminating for Grant Gaffney ’22. He said, “To be able to chart the path of the Nazi movement offered invaluable insight to my understanding of the emergence of hate-fueled ideologies and the importance of a strong sense for empathy and individualism.”

Meaningful educational experiences such as the Bearing Witness and Invisible Man trips prepare Marist students to lead and serve their communities with compassion, integrity, and a sense of purpose so they may become the faith-filled, global-ready servant leaders of tomorrow.

The following video montages capture highlights from the Bearing Witness XI trip: