700 U.S. students will sail to Cuba

PITTSBURGH -- (AP) -- A boatload of college students will sail the Caribbean this month, but not to party.

About 700 students from the Semester at Sea, a shipboard program for U.S. collegians run by the University of Pittsburgh, will dock in Havana on Feb. 19 in what is believed to be the largest college visit to Cuba in 40 years.

``There hasn't been anything like this. There have been small groups of perhaps 10 to 20 students going to Cuba, but not a group this large,'' said Jose Moreno, 68, a Pitt professor of sociology and Latin American studies.

The Semester at Sea got approval for its three-day visit on Thursday. Educators had to satisfy both the Cuban government and the U.S. Treasury Department, which allowed an exception to the U.S. trade ban.

If the visit goes well, larger trips could be scheduled in coming years, said Billie DeWalt, director of the university's Latin Studies program.

The students will live with Cuban college students and learn about Cuban health care, education, music and architecture.

``One of the goals we have is that our students will befriend a Cuban student and spend the three days with that individual, seeing Havana, learning about their life, their family, their city and their culture,'' said Les McCabe, a Semester at Sea administrator.

Educators have been trying to make the trip apolitical. The Semester at Sea has docked previously in South Africa, China, the Soviet Union -- and in Vietnam for the first large-scale college mission since the Vietnam War.

Cuba's 11 million residents live just 90 miles from Florida in a space roughly the size of Pennsylvania. The country has been under Fidel Castro's rule since the 1959 revolution.

President Clinton's administration has been easing restrictions on exchanges with Cuba. For example, the Baltimore Orioles may play an exhibition game against Cuban players this year.

The Semester at Sea's 650-foot S.S. Universe Explorer -- complete with a library and computer lab -- leaves Bermuda for Cuba on Feb. 17 and will eventually reach Seattle on May 28.

Moreno, who left Cuba before the revolution to study in Europe, will lecture to college sophomores and juniors about his homeland.

``The average undergraduate doesn't know anything about Cuba,'' he told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.