These are remarks delivered by Kalamazoo College President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran on Friday, October 24, 2008, in Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Mich., to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and honored guests of the College, at Friday morning Convocation celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Kalamazoo College Study Abroad program.
President B. Wilson-Oyelaran
You see, financially-backed inspiration was crucial 50 years ago, and it remains so today. In the summer of 1956, Kalamazoo College Chairman of the Board Richard Light and his family participated in a French-language program in Grenoble, France. The growth he saw in his own children that summer led Dr. Light to propose a similar experience for “K” students. And fortunately for the College, Dr. Light provided the financial means to support a pilot project that set sail in 1958 with 25 Kalamazoo College students bound for France, Germany, and Spain. Those students were able to launch this great adventure for one reason only:
The College had the philanthropic support to make a sound idea reality. The support that began with the Light Family Trust has continued through the years with The Arcus Foundation, the Beeler Estate, and the many individuals who help sustain and enhance this wonderful program. And it must continue in the future.
-Academic Dean Larry Barrett, 1957
And how appropriate it is that we celebrate the birthday of our study abroad program with an honored guest speaker and fellow world traveler—Dr. Josephine K. Olsen, deputy director of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps traces its roots and mission to 1960, when then Senator John F. Kennedy challenged college students to serve their country in the cause of peace by living and working in developing countries. From that inspiration grew an agency of the federal government devoted to world peace and friendship. Dr. Olsen began her career in the agency’s earliest years when she served as a volunteer in Tunisia from 1966 to 1968, teaching English and developing community health programs. In the intervening years she rose through the ranks of the organization during a time when the agency grew into many new countries. Indeed, the timelines and trajectories of the Peace Corps and Kalamazoo College’s study abroad program are similar, and the connection between them strong.
Many Kalamazoo College students become Peace Corps Volunteers. In fact, in 2007, “K” ranked first in the country for the number of students per capita who had elected to join the Peace Corps during the 20-year period that was the focus of the study. Our high participation rates in study abroad and the Peace Corps are connected. The Peace Corps’ mission has three goals, and each starts with the verb “to help.” And the first step for that is to explore and celebrate the differences and the fundamental kinship of human beings throughout the world. For that, so many of us owe thanks to our study abroad program.
How shall our “great adventure” continue? To begin to answer that question, let me read you one sentence from the grant proposal to the Light Trust—the original 1957 proposal that sought the funding necessary to launch the adventure. It also serves as a reminder to us today of the continuing importance of philanthropy to our study abroad program.
The proposal was written by the then Academic Dean, Larry Barrett, and the sentence reads like this: “Certainly it is the responsibility of a liberal arts college to graduate men and women for whom at least one foreign language is not a graduation requirement met and forgotten, but a living medium of communication with other peoples.” What a worthy goal for study abroad, to be a fellowship of learning with other peoples! Thirty years later, in 1987, Larry Barrett wrote again about study abroad. I’ll paraphrase. He warned us not to see study abroad, and other elements of the K-Plan, as “too much an event that happened once, and not enough a process happening now.” He cautioned us not to consider study abroad “so much a victory that we are tempted to stay where we are.”
So, today, how shall the “great adventure” continue? To start, we will develop innovative curricular and co-curricular programs that will more fully integrate study abroad into students’ overall liberal arts experience. Among the proposals are:
- Globally focused core seminars designed to foster integration of study abroad with the on-campus curriculum.
- An optional Global Studies minor obtained by taking the core seminars in combination with a foreign language and study abroad.
- Interdisciplinary minors that will allow students to examine a topic of their choosing from multiple disciplinary perspectives.
-- Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, President Kalamazoo College (October 24, 2008)
