My Global Engagement Week

I have some involvement with international students and/or visiting guests nearly every week—one of the wonderful benefits of working at a college with a nice global engagement program. This week has been a particularly interesting example.

Monday evening I had dinner with a delegation of four educators from China. They are here exploring partnership opportunities with Snow College. We also had Her Excellency Rosemary Mendes of the Congolese government on campus Monday and Tuesday. I met her in DR Congo when I visited there last summer; it was fun talking with her again. Her son is a student at our college. After dinner, Dr. Nagwa Nawar, our Fulbright Scholar in Residence from Mansoura University in Egypt, gave a presentation on Religion in the Arab World. It was fascinating for my wife Kathy and I to look for all the similarities that exist between our religions.

Tuesday at noon, our small group of Saudi Arabian students put on a wonderful program for elementary school students in our student center. They danced, and even cooked a big lunch of traditional food for everyone.

Thursday night our athletic director, Rob Nelson, and I took eight students from China and Vietnam to Salt Lake for dinner at an extremely authentic Chinese restaurant. I have come to know this group of students quite well. They loved the food and I loved watching them have so much fun eating it.   

And finally, I rounded out the week Friday with lunch at an authentic Mexican restaurant in Ephraim. So, this week, I had authentic Chinese, Mexican, Saudi Arabian and Egyptian food. Oh, and I had authentic American food! I spent time with visitors from China, Congo and Egypt. We have small numbers of international students at the college from 25 different countries. They are fully engaged on our campuses; they serve as student body officers, participate on athletic teams, perform in theater, music and dance productions and one even works part-time in my office. 

I have attached a couple photos I took with my phone.