March 15, 2007

Kalamazoo College President Joins State Department Delegation on Trip to India

KALAMAZOO, MI—The State Department announced today that Karen P. Hughes, the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, will lead a delegation of six American university leaders that will include the president of Kalamazoo College on a weeklong trip to Mumbai and New Delhi, India, on March 24-30, 2007. It is the second in a series of high-profile tours to promote American higher education overseas. Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education, led the first tour last November, to China, South Korea, and Japan.

This month’s delegation will include Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran, of Kalamazoo College; Thomas A. Farrell, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programs; John J. Bowen, of Johnson and Wales University; Mark A. Emmert, of the University of Washington; Margaret B. Lee, of Oakton Community College; John M. Lilley, of Baylor University; and James L. Oblinger, of North Carolina State University. The group will meet with students, academics, and government and business leaders in Mumbai and New Delhi.

“Through meetings with students and leaders in higher education, government, and business, the delegation will promote the quality, dynamism, and diversity of U.S. higher education overseas,” says Nicole Deaner, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. “They will carry the message that the U.S. welcomes and values international students who want to study in the United States, and they will highlight the importance of international education to increasing mutual understanding and preparing globally competitive American students.”

This is the second in a series of delegations stemming from a commitment to greater partnership in the national interest made at the U.S. University Presidents Summit on International Education co-hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in January 2006.

“It is imperative that leaders in higher education around the world take seriously the responsibility to assist students to become effective agents of change in a world that is deeply troubled,” says President Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran. “On each of our campuses we must provide vision and support to the efforts of faculty and staff who design, implement and examine pedagogies that promote students’ informed and ethical engagement to build a more just, equitable and sustainable world. I am honored to have been selected for the U.S. Higher Education Delegation to South Asia as a representative of Kalamazoo College.”

A critical aspect of building a more just and sustainable world is students studying abroad. Kalamazoo College is one of the nation’s highest ranking in study abroad programs. Currently, approximately 85 percent of Kalamazoo College students study abroad, most (88 percent) on programs which last at least two academic quarters. While abroad, students explore new cultures, refine their language skills and hone their capacity for intercultural communication. In the 2005/06 academic year, 248 students studied abroad in 26 countries, 48 percent in non-European settings.

A Fellowship in Learning: At Home in the World, Kalamazoo College is a national liberal arts college and the creator and home of the Kalamazoo Plan. By emphasizing scholarship, civic engagement, and foreign study, Kalamazoo College cultivates a fellowship in learning among students, faculty, and a community of scholars throughout the world. Its students shape elements of the Kalamazoo Plan—rigorous academics, career internships, study abroad, service-learning, and a senior individualized project—into an educational experience that provides insight into the meaning of the kind of citizenship that is at home in the world.