The Artois Program, established in 1999, is one of several Penn State International programs in France. Others are located in Besan on, Lyon, Paris, and Strasbourg. Approximately 60 Penn State students from a wide variety of majors study in France each year and more than 800 participate annually in one of Penn State's International Education programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and New Zealand. This is a spring-semester or academic year program in the Liberal Arts for students with intermediate skills in French.
Engineering is also a possibility for highly motivated students.
The Facult des Lettres of the Universit d'Artois is located in Arras, a small city with a population of 80,000 situated in the heart of Northern France. Arras was formerly the capital city of the medieval French comt known as Artois. Participants in the program will have the opportunity to sample the traditional dishes of the area, to visit a number of its 33 museums, such as the Fine Arts Museum of Lille which ranks second in France to the Louvre, to tour some of the 200 ch teaux classified as historical sites in the region, to visit one of its 13 fortified cities, to attend a concert by Lille's nationally renowned orchestra, and to visit the largest bookstore in Europe - Le Furet du Nord. Arras King Philip II of Spain established the precursor of the modern-day Universit d'Artois in 1562 in the city of Douai. At the end of the 19th century, this university was transferred to the city of Lille, where it became known as the Universit de Lille.