KU exchange program offers study in Costa Rica
By CASS SEXSON
Kansan Staff Writer
As KU students on the Hill don their heavy coats in preparation for the winter, seven of their colleagues will be studying for finals in their shirt sleeves.
These students are in the last month of their Junior Year in Costa Rica, an exchange program between KU and the University of Costa Rica, in San Jose, Costa Rica.
The program, which is administered by KU in conjunction with the University of Colorado, has been in operation since 1960. Since that time, 111 students from KU, CU and other institutions have been participants.
One of the biggest problems for the American students was adjusting to the Costa Rican environment. In a questionnaire sent to all previous participants by the International Office at KU, 18 out of 40 replying admitted that they never fully adjusted to the change.
Judith Myers Clinton of Lawrence, who went to Costa Rica in 1965, said it was difficult for the students to escape the KU group image and fit into the student life of the University as individuals.
Those who did adjust were pleased with the difference in environment and culture. Earle B. Ellis of Palo Alto, Calif, who was with the 1964 group, said, "My experience in Costa Rica taught me that this country (United States) is not the only place where I can live—that there is a place where happiness and peace are a part of the culture."
18 KANSAN Nov. 7
1969
Myrna Wilkins, who participated in the first year of the program and now lives in Venezuela, compared the similarities between America and Costa Rica.
"The year gave me a better understanding of our customs and culture, and a clearer picture of how people everywhere are much the same in needs and desires," she said.
Miss Wilkins added, however, that she was sometimes ashamed of her North American classmates, who seemed at times to be insensitive to the customs and culture of the Costa Ricans.
Other past participants said the experience of being a foreign student gave them added maturity and responsibility. JoAnn Brauchi Walcott, San Mateo, Calif., said, "It put me in a new and responsible role in which I represented not only myself but my country and my culture."
One participant, Jan L. Flora, Quinter, who was with the 1963 group, disagreed. "The setting was artificial, so I feel any maturity gained in Costa Rica was left in Costa Rica—an isolated maturity," he said.
The caliber of students accepted into the KU-Costa Rica program is high. Of the 40 who returned the questionnaires, 31 had better than a 2.00 grade average. Thirty-eight have or expect to get a baccalaureate degree, 20 have or are working toward a master's degree, and 5 are working on doctorates. Two past participants have graduated from medical school.
Honors won by past participants in the program include three Woodrow Wilson fellowships, four Fulbright scholarships and four memberships in Phi Beta Kappa, national Liberal Arts honor society.
Many past participants in the program have traveled outside the United States since returning from Costa Rica. Most have returned to Latin America in their travels, but others have gone to far-flung areas of the globe—West Africa, Korea, England and the Far East.
The effect of the program is still being felt by some of the students and nearly all said the experience had changed their goals in some way.
Rebecca King Shutt, who went with the 1962 group and now lives in Mystic, Conn., said. "Seven years later I'm still assimilating the perspectives."
Jan Flores has maintained connections with Costa Rica in another manner. Through his urging, his parents sponsored one of his Costa Rican colleagues at the University as an immigrant to the United States.
Two former group members, Pvt. Andrew J. Schlagel, a member of the 1966 group, who is stationed at Ft. Campbell, Ga., and Joseph Jones of Emporia, who was with the 1968 group, returned to the United States with Costa Rican wives.
Rebecca King Shutt echoed the sentiments of many of those who have gone to Costa Rica in her answers as what she liked best and least about the year in Costa Rica.
The best aspect of the trip, Mrs.Shutt said,was that in Costa Rica the poor have more music,orchids and dignity than in the United States.
She liked least, she said, "the feeling of where-on-earth-dowe-even-start to work against poverty—and do the orchids go with it?"
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