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The USC-University of Warwick Exchange Program will celebrate its 40th anniversary this year with an effort to organize alumni who will become actively involved with future exchange students.
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| Thomas Lekan |
The exchange program with the British University in the center of England that sends its American Studies students to USC and other schools in North or South America is the oldest and most prestigious on the USC campus. It has been in continuous existence since 1966 and has about 150 USC alumni.
"We want to get our alumni more involved in the program by organizing a Warwick alumni association to help with the program and to organize a 40th anniversary event," said Thomas Lekan, an associate professor of history, who, with Carol Harrison, also an associate history professor, coordinates the exchange from the USC history department.
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| Carol Harrison |
The alumni organization would also help raise money for an endowment to support a stipend that assists USC Warwick students with airfare to England and other miscellaneous expenses, Harrison said.
Through all of its 40 years, the Warwick Exchange Program for USC history majors, minors, and cognates, has prided itself on the fact that USC students need only pay their USC tuition and housing costs to take part in the year abroad study opportunity.
"This is what makes the program something any of our students can afford to do," said Lekan. "We're committed to this because we want to make sure that the exchange is open to all of our students and that they don't have to be wealthy to participate in it."
In addition to helping support the endowment, Lekan and Harrison envision Warwick alumni getting more involved in welcoming Warwick students to USC by serving as hosts to help them get a better sense of Columbia and South Carolina through day trips or other activities.
Exchange scholars from both sides of the Atlantic have benefited from their year abroad by returning home with heightened academic skills and an appreciation of what it is like to live and work in a different culture, according to the USC history department's Warwick Web site.
"I can say for sure that the year of concentrated study of history trained me to look at my profession and life in a different way," said Miami attorney and civic leader Mike Eidson, '68, who with Columbia attorney Van Edwards, '68, '75 law, were among the first USC students to take part in the exchange program.
"I owe a great deal to the history department at USC--it opened my mind and exposed me to so many new ideas," added Edwards, who practices international law and is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales. "But the greatest gift of all was introducing me to a new world in Warwick."
Other comments by USC Warwick alumni about their year abroad are on the Web at cas.sc.edu/hist/warwick/exchange. Lekan can be reached at Lekan@gwm.sc.edu. Harrison can be reached at CEHarris@gwm.sc.edu.
9/06
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