President’s Blog
Powerful Partnership
January 05, 2009
One highlight of this past fall term was planning for our 40th anniversary celebration with the Universidad de Guanajuato (UG)—and the city of Guanajuato. Dean Josie Wilson, Meredith Reynolds, Dennis Slattery, and many others have been putting together an exciting academic colloquium for April 16, 2009, while folks from the City of Ashland and SOU have been working on the Global Conference that will take place on April 17.
In order to make stronger connections with faculty and administration at UG, Josie Wilson and I went down for three days in early December, during a festival celebrating the Sister Cities of Guanajuato. Our meetings with university representatives were interspersed with formal ceremonies honoring Guanajuato's many sister cities—which include Toledo, Spain; Avignon, France; Spoleto, Italy; Quebec, Canada; as well as cities throughout Latin America. Guanajuato's only other U.S. Sister City, besides Ashland, is Morgantown, West Virginia, which was represented by both city and University of West Virginia officials.
Almost the only free time Josie and I had was on Sunday morning (we had arrived the night before). We walked through the quiet, early morning streets—and went up, up, up to see the house she and her family had lived in when she spent an academic year in Guanajuato on a Fulbright. It was great to walk, hear the roosters crowing and church bells ringing, and watch the sky turn pink and blue. The weather was very warm—70's and sunny. The city sparkled.
Our meetings were exciting and productive. With our unique university partner, we have such an opportunity to provide both established and new opportunities for SOU students and faculty. UG has grown into several campuses, each with its own identity and administration. Like the city of Guanajuato, the university has partnerships around the world.
At a large gathering of mayors from Guanajuato's Sister Cities, I was delighted to see our friend and alumnus, José Luis Romero Hicks, wearing his red SOU fleece vest. And I was thrilled, during the formal signing ceremony of the Sister Cities, when the Governor of the state of Guanajuato said he hoped he would be invited to the April event in Ashland. (Naturally, he received an invitation as soon as the ceremony was over.)
Josie Wilson will continue working with SOU and UG folks over the coming weeks and months to put together an exciting academic conference and to discuss many opportunities for new types of partnerships with the Universidad de Guanajuato.
With ties running through several generations, SOU's partnership with UG is special and significant. I am so grateful to the many people who worked to keep the relationship alive over the decades and to those who are working now to craft the next forty years. Our celebration in April will honor a noteworthy past and look forward to a remarkable future.
We face many challenges in 2009. However, this partnership will be an increasingly powerful source of strength and positive energy for all of us.
Mary Cullinan
