Program Information | Course Information | W&M Faculty | Dates | Deadlines | Program Fees | Eligibility | Handbooks
Palugo Farm, where students will be housed and learn, is surrounded by majestic Andean volcanoes. The farm is home to a diverse and complex ecosystem of people, plants, and animals alike. For over 40 years, the farm has been cultivating a healthy and productive environment fostering a reciprocal relationship between people and the environment on which we live.
What to Expect:
With the farm as a base camp students will start their days getting accustomed to the farm rhythms. Students will engage with their surroundings through a combination of academic lectures and hands-on experience. Students should expect to participate in farm life and be prepared for basic accommodations, limited access to WiFi, and life on a sustainable farm with limited options for entertainment outside of the farm.
Program Information:
Students will study and live in an outdoor adventure and sustainability school based on an Organic certified farm on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador. This program aims to reinforce the social and environmental responsibility of participants through the creation of community and outdoor experiences. This program will offer experiential learning opportunities to students with the objective of focusing on sustainability. Each week will have 4 days of classes and activities at the farm and 3 days of visits to different communities and places. Some excursions could include: Quito Old Colonial Town, San Clemente community, Otavalo Indigenous Market, Ashanga Project, Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve and Papallacta hot springs. Some of these outings may involve hiking and bike riding. Students should be comfortable in places of high altitude (7700 feet high) with walking and hiking being a part of the daily routine.
Course Information:
Students on the Ecuador program earn 6 credits.
Courses:
HISP 131/231: Spanish for Cultural Immersion (3 credits)
HISP 389/COLL 200 ALV: Joyful Struggles: Stories of Inspiration (3 credits)
Course descriptions:
HISP 131/231: The purpose of HISP 131/231 is to give students the tools to learn about real-life and culture in the Spanish-speaking countries, in this case Ecuador and to develop skills like listening, speaking, writing or reading while working at the farm or visiting surrounding communities. You will have the opportunity to hear the variation of Ecuadorian Spanish depending on the settings that you will be at. This is a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the language and the indigenous and mestizo cultures of Ecuador.
As you learn about the day to day in the farm you will be learning and/or reviewing vocabulary and grammar structures that will help you communicate with the people living around you. The design of this course is based on a daily contact with Spanish speakers and your assignments will vary according to your level.
We are aware that because there is no Spanish requirement this is a multilevel Spanish course. Therefore the activities and assignments in the class, even though they are connected to the activities that Nahual has prepared for you, will be different according to your level of Spanish.
Beginners class (HISP 131): The focus will be on basic grammar structures and vocabulary needed for daily communication in the farm and the surrounding communities.
Intermediate level (HISP 231): This level will focus on learning more advanced grammar structures that will help sustain a small conversations telling stories orally or written and sharing experiences with the people you have daily contact with.
HISP 389/COLL 200: “Joyful Struggles” will center on ongoing efforts of communities, in Latin American and beyond, that have sought to rewrite social expectations around the concepts of development and consumption. In a global society that has come to favor speed, individual wealth, and cheap, disposable commodities, sustainable farms like Palugo and the surrounding network of projects and communities stand in stark contrast. What ideals and values do these projects/communities foreground, and what do they have to offer us as potential models for our own individual lives and as members of our own communities?
“Joyful Struggles” is an interdisciplinary course that centers on cultural studies as the primary methodology for examining the ideologies at the center of contemporary society’s reliance on hyper-consumerism. What this means in practical terms, is that we will be exploring the methodologies of two primary domains: Arts, Letters, and Values [ALV] via our focus on novels, short films, and poetry, and Culture, Society and the Individual [CSI] through the close examination of journalistic accounts, as well as essays from a wide range of disciplines including Sociology, Economics, and Psychology. We will focus on both the texts and the methodologies of both knowledge domains equally in an effort to better understand alternatives to a global society that has, over decades and perhaps centuries, naturalized consumerism and individualism.
Together, we will augment our intellectual learning by participating in the hands-on experience of daily work on a sustainable, organic farm. We will perform daily farm chores, participate in ongoing discussions with farm staff in order to live, albeit momentarily, the values at the center of an alternative vision for what society might be. Furthermore, we will take three weekend excursions to visit with, and consider, other communities undergoing similar efforts.
The aim of the farm work is twofold: 1) to challenge students in ways that take them out of their physical comfort zone and 2) to give students hands on experience while also allowing ample time to reflect on their personal, culturally specific definitions of fulfillment in the context of consumption and individualism. Our time on the farm, and in local communities, will offer us an opportunity to talk to people who will have their own culturally rooted understanding of what constitutes happiness, contentment, and sustainability.
“Joyful Struggles” is a demanding course. Conceptually, the course is divided into two components: 1) a two-credit academic portion that combines course material and discussions with nightly hour long, group reflections, 2) a hand’s on “living lab” which will consist of daily active work on the farm for an hour and a half in the morning intended to put into practice the concepts and values highlighted by the various course texts we will be considering.
Courses are taught by William & Mary faculty. Grades will appear on W&M transcript and will be included in GPA calculations.
W&M Program Director: Paulina Carrion, Hispanic Language House Advisor, Teaching Professor of Hispanic Studies
Term:
Arrival date: July 5, 2025
Departure date: July 26, 2025
Deadlines:
Priority Deadline ($75*): December 2, 2024
Deposit ($750): March 7, 2025 (Friday before spring break)
Final Payment: April 1, 2025
*Application fee information:
The application fee ($75) is due by the deadline and should be paid online at the GEO Marketplace Store. Whoever is making the payment will need student 93#, email, and phone number. The application fee is refundable in the event that you are not accepted into the program or the program is canceled by W&M.
Program Fees:
2025 program fee: $6800
Reves Summer Scholarships are available for this program.
Program Features:
All meals
Ground transportation to/from Quito airport
CISI insurance
Housing
Internship on Sustainable organic farm
Excursions to other communities
W&M credits taught by W&M faculty
Fulfills COLL 300
Eligibility:
- Students must be an active W&M undergraduate student in good standing, not on academic or disciplinary probation during time abroad, and eligible to take classes at the W&M Williamsburg campus to study abroad.
- Students currently on-campus must successfully complete 1 credit spring course.
- For more information about eligibility, please visit our Policies that Affect You page.
Handbook:
Click to view the
Summer Abroad Handbook 2025
