After three splendid, warm and sunny days in Athens spent visiting NECHE institutions, I arrived at the airport for a flight to Thessaloniki… and landed a quick 35 minutes later — perhaps my shortest flight ever!
Thessaloniki is a historic, Biblical city on the coast of the Aegean Sea. While half of Greece’s ten million people live in Athens, Thessaloniki boasts a mere one million — but it’s still the second-largest Greek city, yet with a small-town feel. It’s also home to three state universities and two private colleges that NECHE accredits.
First stop was the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT), now with the new name of Anatolia American University (AAU). NECHE has accredited ACT since 1998, but the name- change saga requires an understanding of the convoluted Greek system of higher education. Here’s a very short version: Greek law for decades has prohibited private colleges from offering their own degrees, or from using the term “university.” In Greece, there is the perception of a higher level of educational quality at universities — and that has real consequences for college graduates. New legislation just enacted provides a pathway for private colleges to become universities, but the jury is still out over whether this will actually happen. Trust me: the devil is in the details, but I think for the purposes of this blog, we will recognize ACT as Anatolia American University.
Back to our ACT/AAU compatriots! The inspiration, mission, governance, and programs of AAU all resemble a traditional New England college, upon which it was modeled. Founded by American Protestant missionaries, the school was originally located in Asia Minor and evolved from a seminary in Constantinople founded in 1840. Its mission was to serve the widows and orphans left behind in the wake of the First World War. However, that school was closed during the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922, then turbulently uprooted when the minority communities of both Turkey and Greece were ordered to switch places and return to their respective countries under the peace treaties concluding that war. In 1924, the school and its Greek students relocated to Thessaloniki, where a wide swath of refugees from Asia Minor had settled. In the mid-1930s, the school moved to its present location on a 45- acre campus a few miles from the center of the city.
The Thessaloniki campus of AAU has a fascinating history — even beyond its origins. During WWII, it was taken over by Germany, which used the original school building as headquarters for its Balkan campaign. In that same year of 1941, one third of the population of Thessaloniki was Jewish, but more than 50,000 Jews –including many of the school’s students –were taken to Poland and murdered. Eerily, we were able to explore the Nazi bunkers on campus that are still underground and easily accessible, bringing back the memory of Generals like Rommel, “The Desert Fox,” who spent time here.
Today, AAU is home to about 1,000 students– half of whom are degree-seeking, the other half come from outside the country to attend AAU for a semester or two. More than 300 study-abroad students come from Northeastern University, which has been an AAU partner for 15 years. Its students are unique, as they arrive as first-semester freshmen and take all the usual required NE classes before returning to Boston to complete their degrees. The other 200 students come from over 50 partner schools (mostly in the US) for more traditional study-abroad programs.
AAU’s comprehensive curriculum offers a variety of programs, all taught in English, leading to undergraduate degrees in Business Administration, Computer Science, Political Science, Biological Sciences, Psychology, New Media, and Aviation Management – plus Master’s degrees in Business Administration, Hospitality, and Industrial/Organizational Psychology.
The beautiful AAU campus is situated on a hilltop of thoughtfully-tended acres overlooking Thessaloniki and the sea.
AAU shares its campus with a highly-regarded K-12 set of schools serving more than 3,500 students. This includes a new IB school, the only one in Northern Greece. The entire educational complex is led by the irrepressible President Panos Vlachos, who graciously shuttled me around campus in the school’s golf cart. The care and attention paid to all the buildings and grounds was further evidence of the quality of AAU’s leadership and their passion for excellence.
Even a newly-transplanted, 300-year old olive tree looked happy to be there!
We concluded our visit with a field trip to Vergina, where we visited the 2,300 year-old tomb of Phillip II, father of Alexander the Great. It was discovered, in pristine condition, in 1977 by Greek archeologist Manolis Andronikos, and it was truly mind-blowing to see the treasures he uncovered.
Past, present and future are so mystically entwined in this part of the world!