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What led to your interest in funding college scholarships
for international students?
When I was still in my teens, I took two trips around the
world. It was on those trips that I began to understand that
only through interaction between people can we build bridges
of both understanding and knowledge.
These students [are] coming from Bulgaria or Russia or China,
and they're succeeding in a challenging academic environment
in a second language. They need to succeed . . . but if your
father earns $30 a month, how is he going to fund $30,000
a year? My goal, frankly, is to have all students that graduate
at United World Colleges to go on to university.
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Is this commitment unlimited?
It is. Anybody who can get admitted to Colby from Bulgaria,
I figure they deserve it. Now, when I meet Bro and he says
that professors here come up to him and say, "Get me more
students like these" because they're enriching the classroom,
they're fun to teach, they bring different points of view
to the discussions, and they're making a big impact on the
American students as well as learning a lot themselves--that
just confirms the value of it.
How did the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
D.C., last fall affect your thinking about the program?
My whole company could have been wiped out on 9-11. My office
is on the 94th floor of Two World Trade, [and] our board meeting
was scheduled for that morning at 8:30. By chance, in August
the meeting was switched to the O'Hare Hilton in Chicago.
My son Chris was on the last plane out of Laguardia Airport,
and the captain of the plane said, "There's something going
on at the World Trade Center." They looked over and saw the
ball of flame as the second plane crashed.
I was so grateful, of course, that we'd been spared. But
I also felt that we had a special responsibility . . . to
educate young Americans about global realities while exposing
international students to U.S. college life.
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How, and why, did you get involved in supporting United World
College students?
After meeting Phil Geier [president, UWC of the American
West] I went out to visit the UWC campus in New Mexico. I
was walking past one of the meeting rooms and here were these
two students--one Palestinian and one Israeli--with their
arms around each other. That just blew me away . . . I found
myself thinking, "Hey, this is something I can believe in."
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