Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Goshen College unveils $12.5 million program for regional
research, intercultural campus transformation and greater access
for Latino and other minority students
GOSHEN, Indiana – Goshen College unveiled today a
comprehensive plan to better educate and prepare all students for
living and learning in a multicultural society. The initiative will
increase access to a Goshen College education for regional Latino
and other minority students by creating a welcoming and more
diverse campus environment. What Goshen learns from this program
will be disseminated broadly across the country for colleges and
communities in similar demographic circumstances.
• Streaming
audio file (Quicktime format)
• Spanish version of this news release (en Español)
An experiment in diversity, South Bend Tribune, 10.27.06.
Wish granted, The Truth, 10.26.06. (Free registration required)
Goshen College plans intercultural center, Indianapolis Star, 10.26.06.
'Intercultural' center planned at Goshen College, Goshen News, 10.26.06.
College recruiting more minorities, Fox 28-WSJV, 10.25.06.
Dr. James E. Brenneman, president of Goshen College, announced
creation of the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning at
Goshen College. Lilly Endowment Inc. will fund the new center with a
$12.5 million grant – the largest single grant Goshen College
has ever received – which will focus on three areas:
researching the resources and challenges that changing demographics
bring to a rural Midwest community and to higher education,
creating an intercultural learning environment to benefit all
students and strengthening current efforts in recruiting and
retaining regional Latino and other minority
students.
The new center will build on the college’s historic
academic strengths, core values and its experience in international
education and extend these more intentionally to the increasingly
diverse local community and the world of higher
education.
“The exponential power of this grant and program is for
the research and information to be shared on the national
stage,” President Brenneman said in announcing the gift.
“Goshen College is excited about creating additional
opportunities to better partner with students able to succeed in
college if given the opportunity. We are determined to make this
program successful, and the gift from Lilly Endowment Inc. will help us
create a brighter future for this diverse
community.”
President Brenneman added, While this new venture
represents a bold step for Goshen College, we will continue to
honor our values, tradition and mission as a Mennonite institution
of academic excellence while we serve all students from this region
and beyond.”
The Endowment offered Goshen College the opportunity to dream
about a truly transformative program for their campus. Goshen
College suggested to the Endowment this visionary plan of creating
a center that addresses the needs of the college, the community and
higher education. The program is a faith response of an educational
institution whose roots are firmly planted in the Christian
tradition, which calls for welcoming newcomers in their
midst.
“From our colleagues in education and community
development around the state, we hear time and time again of their
desires to engage new immigrant populations in higher education and
community life,” said Sara B. Cobb, Endowment vice president
for education. “With its tenet of welcoming the newcomer and
its legacy of excellence in education and community service, Goshen
College is well suited to launch this new center. It will benefit
not only Goshen students and communities in Northern Indiana, but
through research and dissemination efforts it also should help
colleges and communities throughout the country in enhancing their
efforts to reach out to Latino and other minority
students.”
Minority enrollment in Northern Indiana schools has grown dramatically.
For example, in Goshen
Public Schools it has grown fivefold – from 8 percent to
41 percent – since 1990. Statewide, research shows (National
Center for Education Statistics) minority enrollment in Indiana’s
public schools has grown almost 9 percent in that same period. But
minority enrollment in Indiana’s colleges has increased only
2 percent during the same time.
Latinos
and other minorities have been drawn to areas such as Northern Indiana
by increased employment opportunities in industry and agriculture.
Other Midwest communities with small liberal arts colleges have large
and growing Latino populations.
Plans call for the new center to be created early next year and
include hiring a staff, establishing scholarships, recruiting a
minority cohort for enrollment in the fall of 2007, providing
cultural programming for the campus, addressing student support
services, reaching into the local Latino community and offering
opportunities for current faculty to learn Spanish. Other
possibilities include collaborative faculty-student research, a
“bridge” program to assist minority students in
preparation for college, partnerships with other colleges and
universities and the local public schools, recruitment of Latino
and other minority faculty and assessment of the college’s
academic curriculum.
As part of its commitment to educational excellence, Goshen College launched
in 1968 a pioneer study abroad program called Study-Service
Term (SST). Since then, this program has transformed the college’s
educational curriculum, the campus culture and the lives of its students
and alumni. Through SST, about 80 percent of Goshen students spend
a semester abroad in a developing nation immersing themselves in the
country’s language and culture, and performing volunteer service.
Goshen was one of the first colleges in the nation to require an international
education component in its curriculum, and it is the college’s
experience with this program that is the foundation for the new center.
“Given recent trends in regional demographic cultural
growth, bringing the institutional vision of global citizenship
closer to home makes sense at this time,” said President
Brenneman.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: The college is in the midst of a major update to its long-term campus master plan, with that process expected to conclude by early spring 2007. Once that plan is finalized, permanent location for a Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning will be resolved and addressed, possibly involving either renovated existing space or creation of new space on campus. In the meantime, temporary space needs for the center will be developed.
Editors: For more information about this release or to arrange an interview, contact Goshen College Interim Public Relations Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.
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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a four-year residential
Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite
tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values –
passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking
and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the
church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term
program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in
Barron’s Best Buys in Education, Colleges of
Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide”
and U.S.News & World Report’s
America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named
Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.