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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, April 14, 2008
BRITISH CAMPUS WILL GIVE BETHANY STUDENTS FRESH PERSPECTIVES
LINDSBORG, Kan.—“It broadens your perspective on so many levels, whether that’s how you perceive yourself, the world around you, or what direction you want to take in life. I think that travel should definitely be part of your college experience,” said Bethany College sophomore Nicolette Unruh. Unruh and six other Bethany students traveled to California and Mexico this January as part of Professor Kristin Van Tassel’s travel writing class.
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| Beginning as early as fall 2008, Bethany students will have the opportunity to study at historic Harlaxton College in England. |
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Beginning as early as fall 2008, Bethany students will have even more opportunities to bring home travel stories and a wider worldview. Bethany College President Edward F. Leonard III recently shared with students the news that Bethany has formed a cooperative agreement with Harlaxton College in England, allowing Bethany students to study abroad there for a semesteror the entire academic year.
Harlaxton College, a self-contained extension campus of the University of Evansville, is a 100-room Victorian manor house in the English Midlands, approximately 110 miles north of London.
Bethany students at Harlaxton will take a British studies course, with regular trips to historic English locations such as battle sites, and be able to have a British host family.
The school also encourages travel experience beyond Britain. A four-day school week provides long weekends for homework – and travel.
At least that’s how President Leonard remembers it from the fall of 1976, when he spent a semester at Harlaxton. On weekends and vacations, he traveled to Scotland, Athens, Rome, Paris and Moscow – where he arranged to meet a “contact” under a bridge, and traded a pair of old blue jeans for an authentic Russian fur hat.
“To me, it was a life-changing experience. You don’t go overseas at 19 and not become a citizen of the world,” he said.
Kristin Van Tassel agrees. She believes that the opportunity to travel is beneficial for all students, whether they’re majoring in business or biology, art or social work.
“Students have their whole lives to work and practice their profession,” she said. “This is a chance to see new perspectives, and they can carry those insights into any profession.”
By encountering unfamiliar places and situations, said Van Tassel, students in her travel writing class have been prompted to reconsider their own habits and assumptions.
“It’s prudent to know how people think in other parts of the world,” she said. “It’s good for everyone at some point to leave the comfortable and the familiar.”
Bethany College, established by Swedish Lutheran immigrants in 1881, is a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The mission of Bethany College is to nurture and challenge individuals in their search for truth and meaning as they lead lives of faith, learning and service. Bethany College is on the Web at www.bethanylb.edu.
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