American students have found that Colby's 67 Davis-UWC scholars are not cardboard cutouts, reducible "representatives" of diverse cultures or political views, but are, of course, individuals. The range of their backgrounds, the eclectic nature of their experience, can be dizzying.

Nicholas Matatu '04, from Zimbabwe, attended the UWC in Hong Kong, then came to Colby to study Chinese literature and Japanese politics. Nandini Naik '05, from India, is majoring in theater and dance and in religious studies and had a role in the campus staging of The Vagina Monologues. Joseph Okeyo '05, of Kenya, a fine basketball player, arrived on campus with experience in an AIDS hospice in Bangkok and is headed for an M.B.A. and a job in banking.

Lubos Hudec '05, an accordion player from the Czech Republic, is studying music and physics. Adelin Cai '05, from Singapore, whose father is a professional magician, taught at a school of hearing-impaired youngsters two summers and is a stalwart of the popular Social Action Theater troupe at Colby. Andrijy Avramenko '04, the son of two engineers from Ukraine, surprised himself by falling in love with classes in art and literature, especially one course on "Asian heroes taught by an Irishman. It had that odd mix, maybe that's why I liked it," he said.

It's an eclectic mix of cultures that can be a melding of extremes. Charles Data '04 wedges his campus job in the post office between classes and a blizzard of academic obligations and volunteer activities. Like many international students, he also works up to 20 hours a week to supplement his scholarship funds. Like few others, he sends almost all of what he makes to his family back home.

Data, an economics major, was born in the Sudan and grew up in Uganda. He's one of 10 Davis-UWC Scholars from Africa at Colby. When he talks about his trajectory from Uganda to two years of academic and social preparation on the United World College campus in Norway to Colby in Maine, he said he's "as surprised as anyone else to find myself here." Born into a poor family (his mother works a small agricultural plot, his father lives in a refugee camp), Data was encouraged by his older brother to seek educational opportunities outside of Uganda.

He admits that he suffered a walloping dose of culture shock when he first arrived in Waterville. Thrown off at first by American customs, he wasn't sure what to make of the cheery but seemingly empty greetings that were shouted out at him around the campus. "I didn't know whether Americans were all fake," he recalled. "People just seemed to be speaking at high speed--saying, 'Hi, wuzzut!'--but it becomes very confusing to know whether they were at all interested in an answer to the question they were asking."

The relatively open attitude toward homosexuality on campus also startled him. He'd feared being placed with a gay roommate and took some time warming up to openly gay and lesbian classmates. Attitudes about homosexuality in Uganda are so different, he explains. But Data experienced a dramatic change of heart over the course of his first year. His supervisor at the student post office, a gay man, "treated me respectfully," Data said. "I really liked him. And that made me wonder why I should have disrespectful thoughts about gay people on the whole. I just began to let my prejudice go."

Data hopes to work for the United Nations, helping run resettlement programs. Eventually, he says, he'd like to go into politics in his native Sudan.

As he settles into his third year at Colby, Data is keenly aware of his special status--both at Colby and back at home. His unusual opportunity inspires a strong sense of responsibility. "I feel that I'm taking the resources of fifteen people's education by being here--it's all being devoted to me," Data said softly. "And that raises quite important questions for the rest of my life. I have to think where I'm going to end up, and also how am I going to do something to compensate the other fifteen people who were sacrificed so I could be here."

As he considers all the implications of increasing Colby's international reach in recruiting students, President William Adams sees multiple benefits. Besides providing opportunities for talented and extremely well-prepared students from all around the world to study here, the benefits for American students are compelling too. "We believe that a contemporary college education ought to be both cross-cultural and transnational," Adams said. "International students contribute to the intellectual life of the college in distinctive ways. We need them for the important contributions they make to the educational process itself. We need them, in short, to help educate us."

For information about the United World Colleges visit www.uwc.org