SUNY Jamestown Community College has sent students all over the world through its study abroad travel courses, international internships, and additional global learning opportunities.
But never Vietnam ... until now.
A trip to southeast Asia is scheduled for Jan. 2 through 16 under the guidance of Mark Sasse, JCC’s Arts programming administrator who is well acquainted with the country.
Sasse taught English to students in Vietnam from 1994 to 2003 before moving to Malaysia to teach history.
“Vietnam has a very special place in my heart, for sure," he said. “After living there, I went into history, and I did my master's thesis on Vietnam. It kind of became a passion point for me. To be able to have this opportunity to share my experience with these students will be really fantastic.”
Sasse speaks Vietnamese and has many contacts in the country. To plan the history travel course, he returned to Vietnam in early April for the first time in 16 years.
“I was able to kind of spend the week looking at everything through my students' eyes of what they would be experiencing,” Sasse said.
travel course to the country in 2026.
Sasse’s week in Vietnam was used to visit historical sites, find the best places to eat, coordinate transportation, and get reacquainted with the country he called home for 10 years.
Sasse plans to take students to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, the new Vietnam Military History Museum, and Hỏa Lò Prison, all in Hanoi.
“The course is focused on Vietnam colonialism, communism, and culture,” Sasse said. “What I'm really focused on is the different sites that were important during the time when the French colonized Vietnam, and then their struggle for independence, and the rise of their leader, Ho Chi Minh.”
At Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, students will be able to see Ho Chi Minh’s body in a glass gasket. At Hỏa Lò Prison, which American soldiers dubbed the Hanoi Hilton, they will witness the grounds where French colonists kept political prisoners and where Senator John McCain was imprisoned during the Vietnam War.
Sasse said the area outside the Vietnam Military History Museum is “like this graveyard of U.S. and Soviet army equipment – from planes, to tanks, to everything. It's such a bizarre site that you're sitting here in Vietnam, and you're just seeing all this American, in the day, high-tech equipment on one side, and then on the other side, you see the Soviet planes, and the Soviet tanks. It's quite a sight.”
Students will also be given the opportunity to explore rice fields, visit ethnic minority groups in the country's mountainous region, and spend a night in a traditional stilt house.
“It'll be quite a cultural experience for sure,” Sasse said. “We're going go to the famous Ha Long Bay, which is beautiful limestone peaks out in the water off the coast. Some of the sites are absolutely stunning. They'll see the beauty of both the country and the people of Vietnam.”
The travel course is open to full- and part-time JCC students and anyone wishing to receive a comprehensive guided tour of select Vietnam historical sites.
To learn more about course content, travel requirements, costs, and registration, contact Sasse at MarkSasse@mail.sunyjcc.edu or 716.338.1166.