Now 55, College Year in Athens continues to teach and inspire

Who would have thought that a 15-year-old girl who crossed the Aegean as a refugee in a small boat 95 years ago would become one of Greece's leading cultural and educational ambassadors? Ismene Phylactopoulou, who came to Athens with her family from Smyrna in 1922, may no longer be with us, but her spirit lives on in College Year in Athens, a program founded in 1962 on the idea of bringing foreign students to study in Greece for one or two semesters - quite innovative at the time.

Now in its 55th year, CYA collaborates with more than 400 universities in the United States and has over 9,000 alumni, more than 200 of whom teach at universities in the US and Canada. Many of the alumni who have returned to Athens to teach at CYA can be found living around its headquarters in Mets, behind the Panathenaic Stadium (Kallimarmaro), while you'll also find students whose parents met...