SHREVEPORT, LA — First year students at Centenary College of Louisiana have just returned from one of the most unique educational experiences available to American undergraduates: the chance to start their college education in Paris, France, in one of eight courses offered as part of the Centenary in Paris program. A special exhibition of photographs submitted by the 2022 Centenary in Paris students will open at Shreveport’s R.W. Norton Art Gallery on Saturday, August 20, with an opening reception from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. The exhibition runs through September 4 and is free and open to the public.

Centenary in Paris, created in 2014, is one of the College’s signature educational offerings and an important cornerstone of Centenary’s focus on fostering intercultural skills and confidence for students as they engage with an increasingly connected world. The program is included in Centenary’s undergraduate tuition and students pay no additional fees for the week-long experience that takes them to the French capital to explore topics in history, STEM, creative writing, music, and more.

The exhibition has been curated from images submitted by students during their stay in Paris between August 4 and 12. Taken primarily with mobile phone cameras, the images range from iconic Parisian monuments to unexpected vignettes of Paris life captured as the students moved through the city with their professors and classmates. Shea Hembrey, assistant professor of art at Centenary, curated the images to create the eclectic exhibition.

Anne-Marie Bruner-Tracey, assistant dean for global engagement at Centenary, traveled with the first year students to Paris and got to witness the creation of the special exhibition from the ground up.

“This year, Centenary has been gifted the opportunity of transporting the visual Paris experience of our student travelers to an idyllic off campus gallery and delivering a two-week exhibit run to share with our entire Shreveport and Ark-La-Tex community,” said Bruner-Tracey. “The beauty of this collaboration between the College and the R.W. Norton Art Gallery is that it enhances the level of each student’s connection to their city and both invigorates and professionalizes these images beyond the world of social media. The intentionality of this exhibit supports the outstanding classroom experiences delivered by tireless faculty and helps students realize that our individual ways of ‘seeing’ make a difference in who we are and who we can become.”

 More information about the Centenary in Paris program is available at centenary.edu/paris.