Published: May 14, 2008 11:39 am         

College mourns toll from China quake

Goshen College officials are mourning the loss of life and devastation from China’s worst earthquake in three decades.

The college has sent students to a university in Chengdu, China, for 25 years as part of its Study-Service Term program and was the first U.S. college to arrange an undergraduate exchange with the People’s Republic of China in 1980.

Since a magnitude-7.9 earthquake hit the Sichuan Province, of which Chengdu is the capital city, on Monday, Tom Meyers, Goshen College Director of International Education, has been reaching out to friends the college has made in the area.

“We were very saddened by the news of the terrible earthquake, the lives lost and the damage to this country we have such a strong connection with,” Meyers said. “We pray for their safety and ability to recover from such significant losses.”

Meyers received notice from Yang Tianqing, the assistant director of the foreign affairs office at Sichuan Normal University, that all teachers and students are safe at the university, where Goshen sent students.

Tianqing wrote, “The building where you stayed shook wildly. We all rushed out of the building. Yesterday evening many faculty and students stayed outside.”

When the earthquake occurred, Goshen College Director Emeritus of International Education Wilbur Birky was in Chengdu to give lectures, though he is reported safe.

There have been 158 Chinese scholars from the Sichuan Province who have studied at Goshen College as part of an educational exchange with SichuanProvincial Education Commission. Meyers has not heard the status of all of them yet.

Meyers is also assessing what impact the earthquake disaster may have on the college’s Study-Service Term (SST) program in China, as a group of students is scheduled to go in late August. The students are planning to live in Nanchong at China West Normal University, which is located in eastern Sichuan Province.

“We have heard that all is well there,”Meyers said.