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HONOLULU (August 15) - The United States Military Academy at West Point has its long gray line, as the corps of cadets is known. The East-West Center (EWC) has its long diverse line. And, the 153 new EWC students, from some 35 countries around the Asia Pacific region and elsewhere, trooped their colors during an official welcoming ceremony Monday (Aug. 14).
The newcomers raised the total number of students at the EWC in this fiscal year to 481, representing 52 nations, the highest figures since 1973.
The colorful ceremonial rite of passage for the students into the EWC family started off with a Hawaiian chant and hula. The lei-adorned new scholars then followed with a short self-introduction.
Terance Bigalke, the Center's director of education, noted that the students had arrived with their own "individual aspirations and study plans ... and we want you to achieve your goals and be deeply prepared in your chosen fields and programs."
But, academic achievement is not the only thing the EWC students will gain. "You are linked to a 46-year tradition," Bigalke told the students, "to the nearly 6,000 students who have come before you and the many thousands we hope will follow you. Your experience at the Center will be quite different ... and it will be focused around building community."
That community building, according to Bigalke, is another part of the diverse EWC life they will experience through dormitory living, daily interaction, and study together. Exercises, he notes that are "built on tolerance, appreciation of diversity, a sense of compassion, and the sharing of other basic human values."
He dared the students to build upon their EWC experiences, "the challenge to you and for you is to think larger than your individual goals, and to model the micro community that over time builds the macro community of shared understanding."
A challenge the students seemed more than willing to take.
"I was immediately struck by the diversity here," Noora Michael from India said. "All of us recognize that diversity but we also recognize something else, too. We share a common bond ... we have a common or shared identity and are looking forward to change."
China's Shan Jin, an architect student, points out "even though we are from many countries, we have quickly become part of one family ... that is an important thing I will take with me when I return home." Chinese journalist and student Yang Hai Yun agrees. "I hope to learn a lot more about other cultures during my time at the East-West Center ... that knowledge will help me to improve my professional skills."
Of special note, according to the EWC's dean of education Mary Hammond, is the large number of "affiliated" students in the program this year, 106. These are students who are self-funded and have been accepted to the University of Hawaii on their own merits outside of any EWC-sponsored scholarship program. But, according to Hammond, "They recognize the rewards of taking part in the diverse culture of the East-West Center."
The new arrivals include degree students, who will be running the gamut from undergraduate studies to the PhD-level while attending the University of Hawaii, and non-degree fellows enrolled in the EWC's Asia Pacific Leadership Program (APLP). Participants in the latter will be, as Hammond notes, "trained to exercise leadership and promote cooperation in a variety of cultural, geographic and institutional environments."
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The East-West Center contributes to a peaceful, prosperous and just Asia Pacific community by serving as a vigorous hub for cooperative research, education and dialogue on critical issues of common concern to the Asia Pacific region and the United States.
Mary Hammond is dean of education at the East-West Center. She can be contacted at (808) 944-7766 or HammondM@EastWestCenter.org
For daily news on the Pacific Islands, see www.pireport.org. For links to all East-West Center media programs, fellowships and services, see www.eastwestcenter.org/journalists