Doug Mackaman visited ULM last week to recruit seven students into his new study abroad program called The Village.

The Village is a semester-long program where students have the opportunity to live in the thousand-year-old abbey of France called Pontlevoy.

Mackaman had been running a program out of Pontlevoy since 2002 before started The Village.

“It’s right in the heart of what the French call the Valley of the Kings,” Mackaman said. “All the great chateau of France are located within 20 minutes of our town. Our students live and learn right in the historic abbey of Pontlevoy.”

Communications major Taylor Fink recently found out that she is one of the seven students who will study in The Village.

Fink has always wanted to study abroad, but never thought she would get the opportunity. Neither of her parents has ever left the country.

“When I first heard of The Village, I thought it was completely out of my reach,” Fink said.

Then she found out that her scholarships could help pay her way across the Atlantic Ocean and applied on a whim.

She got accepted within hours.

“France just doesn’t seem real and I still can’t believe I’m going,” Fink said.

Fink said her sorority sisters are giving her travel tips and she’s been reading guidebooks “like there’s no tomorrow.”

She wants to visit Germany, England, Ireland and Portugal. Portugal holds a special place in Fink’s heart because that’s where her great-grandparents are from.

Mackaman said he chose Pontlevoy because it’s different from big cities.

“So they can really understand more about daily life and what the rhythms of being a European are all about as opposed from being in a big city where everyone is from somewhere else and everyone is moving all the time,” Mackaman said.

Mackaman thinks ULM is, “poised to really explode what you do with global programming. It’s just increased its interest in doing things internationally.”

Joni Noble, associate professor of art, will serve as ULM’s director of The Village.

Students will be housed at a 16th century Abbey that is a one-hour train ride from Paris.

Students will be able to enroll in up to 19 hours of coursework that is in all English.

The Village is a program developed and administered by Globalized LLC in concert with the University of West Florida. Classes are taught by professors from the United States as well as Europe.

The Village program includes a class on the history of European art from the Renaissance to Cubism, and allows students the opportunity to visit the Louvre in Paris and famous museums in London.

“I’m a public relations major and absolutely love people and the culture. I’ve been out of the country before but this opportunity is in depth and living and breathing in the culture and the people. Getting to stay in the Abbey in and of itself would be something out of a movie,” Sophomore Ingrid Holmes said.

The Abbey where students are staying was burned in the 100 Years War and has served as a military academy, hospital, and elite college in its long history.Mackaman said it’s a strange, long story about why he chose Pontlevoy.

It’s just this place that has had an international reputation. It just kind of stepped up and grabbed us I should say,” Mackaman said.