My Site Title
Office of International Programs
The Abbey Program
Student Reflections...
"I miss it, and think about it everyday. If I
could pay a price (any price) I would pay it,
just to be there one day. I thank you for
having given me that opportunity. Joe is
there doing an internship, he tells me
about it everyday via facebook."
- Colby Huffman, 2008 Abbey Class, MSU
“Abbey Professors teach from the heart and
they teach to the heart.  Dr. Netter made
me see paintings for the first time.  I mean
really see them”
“I call these people every day.  They are all
over the USA but they are like family. I am
closer to them than kids I have known
since grade school.”
“I didn’t have any French and I thrived
over on The Abbey. Now I’m a French
minor and plan to live overseas when I
graduate.  I feel like there is nothing I can’
t succeed at after The Abbey”
I found so many things in Pontlevoy that I
didn’t know I even needed to find.  The
calm and ancient feel of the village is
unlike anything I ever experienced before.
All of us leave something back there when
we return.  A small part of us stays behind.”
“I was marked forever by that semester,
those people and professors.  I can never
tell anyone how rich my life will always be
for those three months.”
“The hair on my arms stands up even today
when I think of my first time seeing The
Abbey”
Faculty Reflections...
Read what previous Abbey Professor of French and English, Dr. Lynn Hoggard,
has to say about The Abbey Program here.
“My Dad was almost mad when I called him to talk about The Abbey.  But Mom softened him
up after our call didn’t go well.  He said all the things I knew anyway.  That we were farming
people and didn’t have money.  That going to college was enough.  That France was far away.  
All that stuff.  But when I talked to Mom the next day she said they would support me if I
could get financial aid to help.  That’s what I did.  That’s how I paid for it.  And it’s almost
funny now.  Because my Verizon bill is more most months than my loan payment.  And when
I think about how that program changed my life?  How it helped get me into law school at
Michigan?  How it is something I still think of every single day?  I chose right for me even if
my Dad was hard on me the whole time I was away.  It’s funny, thought, that the only time I
have ever seen him cry was the day they met me in Detroit to pick me up from The Abbey.  
And even he had to say then that he was proud of me for doing something on my own.