Jessica Dupont ’22 has long been fascinated with Japan and its culture. Now, thanks to a new travel fellowship offered by Siena, she will be making her dream trip to the Land of the Rising Sun.
The Gerald DeFrancisco ’68 LHD ’18 Travel Fellowship is being offered for the first time this semester, and Dupont is the inaugural recipient. The new annual fellowship was established to help Siena students travel overseas as part of a course offered through the history department.
“I’m elated,” she said. “I have always loved Japan - the culture, the language, everything about it. I already started saving years ago in the hopes I could travel there some day, and thanks to this new fellowship it’s going to happen.”
Dupont is currently taking History of Modern Japan with Tim Cooper, Ph.D., assistant professor of history. Sixteen students from the class and two Siena faculty will fly to Japan for 10 days in May to visit firsthand the sites they have studied, touring Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima.
What is Dupont looking forward to the most? During the group’s free day in Tokyo, she’s heading to Edo Wonderland, a Japanese cultural theme park in nearby Tochigi. She’ll don a kimono and for several hours immerse herself in the life and culture of the feudal Edo period, which ran roughly from the 1600s to 1860s.
Dupont should be well prepared with a few handy phrases - she began studying Japanese a few years ago in the hopes she could someday use the language in its home country.
“I’m far from fluent, though!” joked the environmental studies major from Plymouth, Conn.
Cooper said the fellowship will make “all the difference in the world” for Siena students who are considering history courses with a travel component. Applicants will need to go through a selection process and demonstrate financial need.
“Jessica is a very enthusiastic student and eager to learn as much as she can about Japan,” he said. “It will be wonderful to watch her experience it all firsthand.”
DeFrancisco, formerly a distinguished civic leader in residence with Siena’s Center for Academic Community Engagement, approached Siena’s history faculty last year with the idea of funding student travel or capstone research related to history coursework.
“My wife and I are blessed to be able to help deserving students experience the thrill and education that comes to those who visit and study other cultures,” he said. “We sincerely hope that Jessica and other recipients will one day be in a position to help other Siena students fulfill their dreams of travel, and ‘pay it forward’ so that we can keep this tradition going.”