Since 1963, 60,000 students have joined the program to gain academic credits for classes taken while circumnavigating the globe and docking in the ports of nearly a dozen countries. Nearly 14,000 students have sailed with the program under UVa’s sponsorship.

Classes are conducted on board by professors picked from universities across the country. As the sponsor, UVa provides an academic dean and registrar for each of the program’s three annual voyages.

UVa took over the role as academic sponsor in 2006, filling a void left behind when the University of Pittsburgh pulled out after 24 years as sponsor over safety concerns and complaints that its suggestions for program improvement were being ignored.

In December 2012, fourth-year UVa student and Semester at Sea participant Casey Schulman, 22, died when she was struck by a small dive boat’s propeller as she swam off Mero Beach, near Roseau, Dominica. At the time, UVa said that the swimming excursion with friends had been organized independently of Semester at Sea.

Schulman’s family is suing the Institute for Shipboard Education, which manages Semester at Sea, in federal court in Miami over the death. The case is ongoing.