Faculty
 Suzanne Beicken is a lecturer in historical musicology, performer, concert manager and music administrator. She is the School of Music liaison for special event performances to the president, chancellor, and provost of the University of Maryland. She has been manager of the School of Music Kennedy Center Concerts, the Guarneri String Quartet and André Watts campus residency. Suzanne had led several alumni trips to Europe and she looks forward to sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm with you during this tour.
Suzanne Beicken will be the faculty lecturer on Daunbe River and Habsburg Empire.
Jeannie Rutenburg teaches courses in medieval and renaissance history at the University of Maryland, where she has been a lecturer in history and university honors for 15 years. From the time she began studying and teaching their history, she has been fascinated with the Normans—from Rollo the 10th century founder of the Duchy of Normandy to William the Conqueror and the Norman kings and crusaders of the high middle ages. Jeannie will be accompanied by Art Eckstein, professsor of history and director of the undergraduate history honors program. He will contribute to the lecture program with his extensive knowledge of the history of Normandy in World War II.
Jeannie Rutenburg will be the faculty lecturer on Alumni College in Normandy.
 Merrill Leffler has taught literature and writing at the University of Maryland and he is the publisher of Dryad Press, a literary house that publishes books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. His lectures will focus on the immense impact of English translations of Chinese poetry—from the earliest dynasties before the common era through the 17th-century—and on modern American literature, particularly poetry in the works of such figures as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams as well as poets of the following generations.
Merrill Leffler will be the faculty lecturer on China, Tibet and the Yangtze River.
Dr. Robert Lindley Vann, professor of architecture at the University of Maryland, has lead or participated in archaeological fieldwork in Italy, Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan, Israel, and Sri Lanka. Vann served as architect for excavations in Carthage that were part of the UNESCO sponsored effort by more than a dozen different international teams. Widely published and a veteran lecturer, Dr. Vann has accompanied groups for archaeological tourism for more than 25 years. He has taught a course in the History of Greek Architecture for more than 30 years at College Park. He spent a year at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and is well qualified to lead you through Greece.
Dr. Vann will be the faculty lecturer on Greek Isles.
 Michael Olmert teaches English at Maryland and is in the Alumni Hall of Fame. Mike has been to Shakespeare’s “waterish Burgundy” several times and has written about its monastic history, buildings, and storied past. A medievalist and an Emmy award winner, he has previously led alumni trips to Italy, Greece, Scotland, Ireland, and England.
Department of English lecturer and member of Maryland’s Alumni Hall of Fame, Olmert has a special devotion to Egypt. “It’s home to the first extensive writing system,” he says, “one that combines sound and art, useful on both buildings and papyrus.” There’s a chapter on hieroglyphics in his Smithsonian Book of Books. And he wrote the Discovery documentary Nile: River of Gods, about how Egyptian nature changed its art and architecture. Come with him for a trip 5,000 years in the making.
Michael Olmert will be the faculty lecturer on Village Life Waterways of Burgundy and Provence and Egypt: Mystical Land of the Pharaohs.
Steven Rutledge is associate professor of classics at Maryland where he has taught since 1996. He earned his doctorate from Brown University that same year. He specializes in Roman literature, history and culture; has published in all three areas; and is author of Imperial Inquisitions. Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian (Rutledge 2001). Professor Rutledge also teaches courses on ancient urbanization and leads an annual winter term course to Italy whose central focus is Classical material and visual culture (a current area in his research) as well as archaeology.
Steven Rutledge wil be the faculty lecturer on The Blue Voyage: Legendary Turkey and the Turquoise Coast .
 Richard Raymond trained as a painter before studying art history with a specialty in the 17th century. His research has included the great Baroque painters Caravaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt, as well as an Indian mission church in Idaho designed by an Italian Jesuit. He has taught at colleges in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and at the Smithsonian Institution. His interests extend from art to music with a special passion for Baroque opera and Maria Callas. He also sells antique Irish Belleek porcelain and is currently writing a book on the subject.
Richard Raymond will be the faculty lecturer on Saxony Cruise on the Magnificent Elbe River.
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Suzanne Beicken