Visitors find Rice enlightening
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Rice hosted a distinguished
group of State Department guests through the United States Information Agency's
Young Leaders and America Program. The purpose of the program is to bring
together potential future leaders from across the world to get a firsthand look
at American society and culture.
Rice has hosted visitors through the USIA in the past, but this is the first time that the group consisted mostly of undergraduate and recent-graduate-aged visitors. The delegates and their native countries were Mouni Alili, Algeria; Omar Yousef Ababneh, Jordan; Maliha El-Sadr, Lebanon; Said Naoui, Morocco; Faisal Bin Fahad Jassim Al-Thani, Qatar; Abou El Ala Ghaouar, Tunisia; Boubaker Tahri, Tunisia; and Obaid Omran Ali Al-Shamsi, United Arab Emirates. Rice, through University Relations personnel Greg Marshall and Sue Hutchinson, was the last of four universities hosting this group.
During their two-day visit here the delegates learned about Rice through discussions with leaders of various student organizations and by meetings with other faculty, students and staff. The role of the university, however, was not to simply educate the guests on facets of Rice culture, but rather act as a facilitator, allowing people to meet with and learn from each other, Marshall said.
Most of the participants felt that the program was a large success and that they learned a great deal about American culture and society. One aspect of Rice that seemed to distinguish it in the minds of many of the delegates was our student organizations.
"I was impressed with the organization and number of different activities," El-Sadr said. She was also impressed with the level of involvement of students in those activities. A similar response came from Ghaouar, who was impressed with the makeup of the student organizations. He felt that Rice's size was a positive aspect.
"Despite the small size of Rice there are many different organizations," Ghaouar said. Most delegates also felt that their visit gave them a clearer, less biased view of American life.
"The program is excellent. It helped me have a real idea about what America is without the influence of media," Alili said. "I have an objective idea of American culture."
Ghaouar said, "It was a good program; it gave us the opportunity to see for ourselves an image of American society which is different than the image presented by the media."
El-Sadr felt that the most important aspect of the program was the cultural exchange, and that she would "like to tell students to visit our countries, and not just take things from the media." A similar sentiment came from Al-Hani, who hopes to establish an exchange program between Rice and the University of Qatar, in the interests of promoting cultural exchange between the countries.
A more philosophical standpoint on the visit was taken by Ghaouar, who said that his "visit to the U.S. confirmed to [him] that human beings are the same everywhere, regardless of differences."
This item appeared in the News section of the September 20, 1996 issue.
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