On May 1, Fr Dan Ross (CHN) wrote: “For several years I have been working with my present and former students on various cross cultural projects in Southeast and East Asia. Some of these have been in the Philippines and China, but more have been in Cambodia. The efforts have been under the overall idea of finding ways to improve undergraduate university education. Some of the projects would be labeled ‘service learning’ by others, but we are emphasizing not ‘service’ but the ‘partnership’ with those we work with and for in other cultural and subcultural. The projects vary from immersion experiences at a hotel and factories in China and Phnom Penh, providing scholarships for poor children, short term education in poor areas, providing the funding needed for the people in a poor village to build their own school, and research into just what is happening to our students and to all parties involved when we carry out these projects.

We have organized a center that is already funded and in operation, but like a bird without a nest. The ‘nest’ will be at a normal university in China. We are close to signing an agreement with them. It began with us locating a university that is interested to now being ‘courted’ by a university that is asking us to ‘please consider them.’

Information on the center can be found at: www.partner-based-learning.org.”