An interterm trip led by Brett Knappe, assistant professor of art history and associate chair, and Erin Morris, assistant professor of biology, is leaving several students confused as to why the trip is being postponed from January 2011 to January 2012.

Together, Knappe and Morris planned to lead a group overseas to London and Paris because Knappe thinks the two cities are great locations for students to observe both art and science-related pieces.

“The places we were going to see were perfect for my major and minor,” junior nursing student Brette Myers said. “It was a science and art history interterm, and I am a nursing major with an art history minor.”

Junior Eric Reimer was also considering going on the trip. Reimer was looking forward to visiting European science museums.

Plans were made for the traveling group to see a laboratory that performs genetic analyses and to see art museums in London and Paris.

“We’re still going to do it. This is still going to happen,” Knappe said. “We’re just postponing, not canceling, we’re postponing one year.”

Knappe and Morris were already working with a travel agent to plan out the trip, but the agent will save the itinerary for next year’s interterm when the group will travel.

“At nursing school we don’t have interterms, so I was going to have the first half of January off,” Myers said. “It was going to be a great experience. The trip was already organized, all we had to do was go and enjoy it.”

When Knappe and Morris held the informational meeting about the trip, Knappe knew there was a chance the London and Paris trip could need to be rescheduled, for a reason that only he and his wife knew.

“Well, my wife is expecting in January,” Knappe said. “And so we’re going to have a baby instead of a trip.”

Knappe and his wife found out Monday they will be the parents of a baby girl.

“I’m very excited,” Knappe said. “I kind of knew that there was a chance this might be happening earlier and so I had stopped actively trying to recruit for the trip pretty early.” 

Since Knappe knew there were students who wanted to go on the trip, he decided to submit a proposal to teach an interterm class called Art in the Movies instead.

Morris plans to teach a class during interterm as well.

Knappe is hoping the students who wanted to go on the London and Paris interterm trip are still planning to go on the trip in 2012, unless unforeseen circumstances would come up again.

“I hope [students] can wait for us for a year because we’re looking forward to it as well,” Knappe said. “It’ll be a lot of fun.”