Students Help a Drowning Island Stay Afloat

For years now, teams of University of Cincinnati faculty and students have put their applied research skills to work for municipalities in Greece that have been inudated by tourists.  The idea of the ongoing work is to alter the face of tourism so that traditional villages and towns benefit economically without also suffering environmental and cultural damage and decay.  

This summer, UC’s

“Extreme (Tourism) Make-Over” team

, led by Michael Romanos, professor of planning in UC’s

College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

, is  beginning a multi-year effort to bail out the island of Santorini, located 110 miles north of Crete.  It’s an island rich in archaeological sites, dramatic sea-cliff-and-sky scenery and picturesque villages, such that its 12,000 year-round residents host up to three million tourists a year – a number too large for the island’s carry capacity. 

Five faculty and nine students comprise the UC team.  The faculty are Carla Chifos, assistant professor of planning; Frank Russell, director, UC’s Community Design Center; Menelaos Triantafillou, visiting associate professor of planning; and Frank Wray, associate professor of biology.  The architecture and planning students on the 2004 team are Eileen Crisanti, Curt Freese, Hilary Fulmer, Edward Huber, Nicole Lopez-Stickney, Nora Luehmann, Andrew Meyer, Michael Steele and Hayfaa Wadih.

As the UC team tackles the challenges of waste and garbage, transportation, development, water and sewage and rising costs, the students on the team have sent home the following updates:

June 16 and 17, 2004
Curt Freese writes:  Today, we had the privilege of a guided tour of the ancient ruins of Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement preserved in its entirety due to a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that covered the settlement in volcanic ash.  We also learned that it's supposed to be the legendary land of Plato’s Atlantis.  Other things we’ve learned:  All Greek food oozes with a least a quart of olive oil.  And despite our work for the Greek government, we still look like tourists.  At every stop, each member of the group takes 10 or 11 digital pictures of just about everything – from donkeys to flowers.

We had our first meeting with the mayor and various officials of the municipality.  This meeting reminded many of scenes from the movie, “Lost in Translation.”  A question would be asked of the Greek officials in English, translated into Greek, and the resulting answer would take over an hour of expressive and loud Greek discussion.  Needless to say, the meeting went on for quite some time.

June 23, 2004
Andy Meyer writes:  I was coerced to participate in traditional Greek folk dancing.  Turns out, the locals thought I was pretty good at it too.  Every grandmotherly old lady there was lining up to dance with me.  This little guy who was like the “Greek Lord of the Dance” or something kept showing me all these fancy moves.  Not a single plate of food went empty nor a glass of wine went dry the entire evening.  We danced around the fire in the middle of the square, ate, drank and yelled, “Hopa!” a lot.  The celebration was concluded by elder members of the community playing harmonica and singing traditional ballads. 

June 28 and 29, 2004
Today, the team was split into three separate work groups, an economic group, a land use/traditional settlements group and transportation/physical infrastructure group.  Each group is to work on their specific issues, collect the information and data they need and present this data in the forms of maps and a report.  The day started for the economic group with a meeting with the local restaurant owners association. 

We met with the Greek “Godfather” today.  A meeting with one of the principle tour operators turned into the opening scene from “The Godfather.”  Employees of this older gentleman entered cowering in fear, and an old man entered in the middle of the meeting and handed the “Godfather” a bag full of money, which the “Godfather” proceeded to count throughout the meeting.  The land use/traditional settlement team spent the day performing urban analysis of the traditional villages of Perissa, Emborio and Akrotiri.

July 4, 2004
The Fourth of July in Greece!  Our day began with a cruise around the islands of Santorini in a 19th-century schooner.  We stopped at the two volcanic islands of Nea Kameni and Palea Kameni.  Both islands consist of volcanic rock and look similar to the landscape of Mars.  In Palea Kameni, we had a relaxing swim in the warm, sulfur springs.  Eileen and Andy prepared traditional picnic food, from burgers to Skyline dip.  Of course, finding a butcher who understood what “ground beef” was became quite a struggle. 

The project in Santorini is funded by the island's municipality and by UC's Institute for Global Studies and Affairs.

To read more about UC's 2003 efforts in Crete, go to www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=733.

To read more about efforts from earlier years, go to www.uc.edu/info-services/credef.htm.