President: College creates global citizens

Published: January 27, 2007 11:54 pm

President: College creates global citizens

By Rod Rowe
Goshen News Staff Writer

Quoting a claim on the Goshen city Web site, Goshen College President
James Brenneman said last week that Goshen "is the center of it all."

"It must be the navel of the world," he added. "We were excited about
coming to this diverse community," he said of his family's move here
last year from Southern California.

Brenneman spoke Tuesday at the meeting of the Noon Kiwanis Club at
Maplecrest Country Club.

A 1977 GC graduate, Brenneman and his wife spent the past 26 years in
California before he was named president of the school.

Just this month the family moved into their renovated home, after
spending six months in "temporary housing."

Brenneman spoke of the forward-thinking leaders of the college, who 40
years ago started requiring students to study and serve abroad for a
semester.

"Goshen was one of the first to require study and service abroad. The
University of California borrowed the idea" and now requires it of
their students, he explained.

Just last week Goshen College sent 25 students to the Dominican
Republic and to Cambodia, he explained, for the winter semester.

"They'll return with (their) lives changed forever," he said.

CEOs in industry are almost unanimous in thinking that the 21st
century employees must become a global citizens, Brenneman said. He
said American young adults are near the bottom in surveys about
geography and the amount of their international travel.

He said the well-rounded education students receive at GC will include
language and culture, which will be required to become a good citizen
of the world.

He added that GC received a $12.5 million Lilly grant last year for a
new center for intercultural learning.

He later explained the grant will allow an accessible education to
Latino students. The plan is to transform the curriculum to make sure
students succeed when they go out. A major research component, with
publishing of the results, is part of the grant requirement.

"I want to appeal to you. Goshen College needs you and your ideas as
much as ever," he said.

He went on to say that the Rev. Martin Luther King said the world is
like a house where we all have to get along.

"I believe Goshen College and the city can truly become an experience
of the King vision," he said.

"Goshen has the potential to be the 'city on the hill,'" he said.

During the meeting, Brenneman presented Mayor Allan Kauffman with a
plate made from the 80-year-old sugar maple tree at GC that had been
Goshen's "official maple tree of Goshen."

Kauffman declared the tree the official tree in a proclamation he
issued in March 2004, referring to when he was a student on the
campus.

Brenneman explained the tree was damaged and was removed last year,
but was replaced Sept. 9 with another maple tree.

Brenneman said while an insurance company may have a piece of the
rock, he gave Kauffman "a chip off the old block."

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