Hi, I’m Ben R. Wiley, statewide director of the Florida Consortium of Colleges and Universities for Cambridge Summer Schools. I work in the Study Abroad Office of the International Affairs Center at the University of South Florida/Tampa where I coordinate the statewide efforts to promote summer study at Cambridge University with USF as the major program sponsor. Other Consortium members include UNF/Jacksonville, UCF/Orlando, Broward CC, Edison College, Palm Beach CC, St. Petersburg College, Daytona Beach CC, Indian River CC, Santa Fe CC, and Florida Gulf Coast University/Ft. Myers.

My own academic background is in English/Communications, most recently as professor of Communications at St. Petersburg College, and a member of the SPC Honors College where I taught in the Honors Interdisciplinary Studies Program.

While living at Cambridge during the summer school program, I join the other accompanying Florida professors in attending classes with the students and in meeting them for individual tutorial sessions to review course content and to ensure progress on the required essays. During my free time at Cambridge, I join much of the English population in bicycling the countryside and enjoying trips to London for the wide variety of historical and cultural offerings available in this major European capital. I have long been an anglophile from my English major undergraduate days to my present journeys throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and never tire of exploring English literature and landscapes. Likewise, I never tire of introducing England and Cambridge to our Florida students who enroll in the various Cambridge summer schools.

I want students to know that the Cambridge summer program provides opportunities to encounter stimulating classes and meet fascinating people from all over the globe, both in the classroom and in this international community. And I want parents to know that such European travel, along with living and studying at Cambridge, enlarges and changes the student, both in immediate ways and in far-reaching ways as eyes are soon opened to worlds far beyond familiar routines and expectations.

If you have any questions, please contact me at USF: bwiley@iac.usf.edu and 813/974-5116.