Program Coordinators

Experience ancient cultures through the eyes of local guides, scholars, and lecturers. Your hosts, college professors Jim Hagan and Shelley Warren Hagan, have close relationships with local scholars, artists, monks, and lecturers. It is through their eyes that you see a personal view of each culture.

Jim Hagan

Jim Hagan has lived, studied, and traveled in Asia for more than 25 years. He has taken students to study in Asia since 1999. Over this period of time, he and his wife Shelley Warren Hagan, have had the privilege of sharing these culturally rich learning experiences with more than 1,000 students. Jim teaches at Castleton State College and Johnson State College of Vermont. He has lectured in Europe, Asia and the U.S. on Buddhist art, culture, meditation and philosophy.

He lived in India and Nepal for 10 years during the 70’s and 80’s where he studied Buddhism at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, The Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala, India and Ganden Monastery in South India. Jim is an accomplished photographer who has exhibited his photos from 25 years of documenting Buddhist and Hindu Art, architecture, and culture. He is the owner of Wisdom Study Abroad and personally conducts study abroad programs in India, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Tibet. He leads every program the way he teaches — with passion and a concern that each student has the experience of a lifetime!

Shelley Warren

Shelley is an artist who has exhibited her large scale sculptures and installations in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Prior to receiving her MFA Degree from Yale University School of Art, she lived and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa studying art.

In the ancient city kingdom of Patan, Nepal she studied with the Newars, renown for centuries throughout South Asia as the finest statue makers. Here she studied the lost wax process of bronze casting in a Newar foundry. In Kathmandu, Nepal she studied Tibetan Tangka painting as prescribed through ancient iconographical texts.

She has received numerous awards and fellowships from Yale University, New Jersey State Council of the Arts, Art Matters, Rutgers University Center for Innovative Printmaking, and Yaddo. Her work is in the Lannan Foundation Collection and has been reviewed by the New York Times.

Currently, she teaches drawing and sculpture at the University of Vermont and Castleton State College. As principal of Wisdom Tours, she has coordinated and led study abroad programs to Nepal and Greece since 1999.