OUR SECOND ANNUAL: Tours for the Thinking Person : 5 TOP UNIVERSITY TOURS

School on the road, you might call it--travel programs offered as non-credit courses by colleges and universities around the world. Unlike the hostel-style, six- to 12-week study abroad programs designed for college students, these programs are specifically created to meet the time constraints, lodging requirements and interests of adult travelers--travelers who, in the words of Professor Charles A. McKee, director of Michigan State University’s Lifelong Education program, “want to bring home more than their luggage. They want to learn something.”

Marian Goldberg, a New York-based veteran of several years in the field of academic travel, reviewed scores of 1994 itineraries for The Times’ Travel section, and came up with the following five recommendations.

Cornell University Adult University Education Vacations

626 Thurston Ave., Ithaca, N.Y. 14850; telephone (607) 255-6260

Cornell is offering 11 programs for 1994. Join William McMinn, the dean of Cornell’s College of Art, Architecture, and Planning, and an additional faculty member from the architecture department of the University’s Rome Center, for “The Grandeur of Antiquity: Architecture and Western Civilization in Sicily,” May 31-June 13. Cost: $2,670 per person, double occupancy, including first-class hotels, meals, transfers; excluding air fare to Italy. Another option: Yervant Terzian, chairperson of Cornell’s astronomy department, will explore “Terrestrial and Cosmic Landscapes of Hawaii” on the Big Island and Maui, March 19-27. Cost: $2,290, including lodging, meals, land and inter-island transportation; excluding air fare to Hawaii.

Michigan State University Lifelong Education Travel Study Programs

8 Kellogg Center, East Lansing, Mich. 48824; tel. (517) 355-4562, fax (517) 336-2526

MSU has assembled six 1994 programs. “Golf in Scotland” offers a course on the history of golf in the land where the game was born. You’ll study with faculty from St. Andrews University in Edinburgh and have an opportunity to improve your score. May 29-June 6. Cost: $2,395, including hotel, meals, local transportation, green fee for one round at all courses played; excluding air fare to Scotland.

University of California Extension

Department B, UC Berkeley Extension, University of California, 2223 Fulton St., Berkeley 94720; tel. (510) 642-4111, fax (510) 642-0374

Celebrating the 25th year of its Oxford Berkeley program, the university is offering 24 adult courses in two sessions (July 4-23 and July 25-Aug. 1). Participants can learn about the “Making of the English Countryside” from Thomas Greeves, a cultural environmentalist and former archeologist at Dartmoor National Park. There are also six new study programs to the Continent and a cultural history tour of New Orleans, April 21-May 1. Cost for the New Orleans trip: $1,295, including course fee, single room residence hall accommodation, some meals, field trips; excluding air fare to Louisiana.

University of British Columbia Continuing Studies

5997 Iona Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1, Canada; tel. (604) 222-2181, fax (604) 222-5249

UBC offers far-flung international programs and “field studies” courses in and near British Columbia. One field study offering: “Queen Charlotte Islands: A Place of Wonder,” is led by art historian Robin Wright, curator of Native American Art at the Burke Museum in Seattle. June 16-23. Cost: $2,140, including float plane flight from Vancouver, Queen Charlotte Island cruise, accommodations, meals; excluding air fare to British Columbia.

TraveLearn

P.O. Box 315, Lakeville, Pa. 18428; tel. (800) 235-9114, fax (717) 226-6912)

The risks of producing and publicizing a study program that may be canceled due to insufficient enrollment can often outweigh the benefits. Enter TraveLearn, an educational tour operator that organizes tours for a consortium of more than 230 colleges and community schools around the country.

Affiliated schools include: California State University, Los Angeles (tel. 213-343-4900); Coastline Community College (tel. 714-241-6186), and Pasadena City College (tel. 818-585-7608). Participants usually register through the nearest school. Tours include a 14-day Ecuador program, which includes a visit with a native family in Quito and a seven-day Galapagos island cruise. Cost: $2,925, including deluxe hotels and three meals daily; excluding air fare to Ecuador.