This week, nine Bolivian students will visit the College, led by Foreign Service Officer Yuki Kondo-Shah ’07 in order to enrich their international business and entrepreneurship studies at Universidad Catolica, an elite English-language undergraduate business school in La Paz, Bolivia. This visit to the College is sponsored by the United States Department of State as part of President Barack Obama’s “100,000 Strong in the Americas” initiative to improve U.S. relationships with Western Hemisphere countries through student exchanges.
The group of visitors will interact with students and professors at the College and from the Tuck School of Business, along with campus organizations such as the International Business Council. After their visit to campus, students will visit the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. A reception to introduce the Bolivian students will be held Wednesday in the Russo Gallery at 4:30 p.m. and is open to campus.
Kondo-Shah says that her two main goals for this visit are for the Bolivian students to connect with the Dartmouth community socially and academically and to encourage participation in exchange programs to Bolivia.
“I know that while this visit may be short, it will be a life-changing experience for the Bolivian students,” she said.
Though the students are primarily interested in business and entrepreneurship, they will also be guided by government professor and chair of the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies program Lisa Baldez , Dickey Center for International Understanding program manager of human development initiatives Kenneth Bauer and government department chair John Carey.
Bauer said he hopes the visit serves as both a cross-cultural education and cross-disciplinary experience for participants and for Dartmouth students. He says this visit through the State Department is similar to Obama’s “Young African Leaders Initiative,” in which Dartmouth hosts 25 university students from Africa for six weeks over the summer.
“Dartmouth is very lucky to be a part of this, [as] we’re not in [Washington], D.C. or in a big city, and it’s a nice to bring diversity in experiences to the campus and the Upper Valley,” Bauer said. “We are not at the center of the world, but we can bring the world to our campus.”
Kondo-Shah was able to bring these students to the College after receiving funding through the state department and met a contact for the Universidad Catolica in Bolivia while working at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz. Kondo-Shah said that the application process for students to participate in the Dartmouth visit was very selective as it was open to all of the university’s undergraduates pursuing degrees in financial engineering and entrepreneurship. The process consisted of a formal evaluation through an application and interview.
Kondoh-Shah’s interest in international relations was first sparked as an undergraduate student at the College while pursuing a degree in government. She said that she now enjoys advising students and demonstrating that there are global possibilities for their careers.
Carey, who specializes in the study of constitutions, legislatures, elections and Latin American politics, says that his first international undergraduate experience was in Bolivia. He said that he visited Bolivia in 1985 and was able to see some of the country’s first elections.
According to Carey, the political climate in Bolivia is different than that of the United States because Bolivia has experienced a trend of political instability for most of its history. He said that the differences in political climate create unique methods of perceiving the world, and that Bolivian students and Dartmouth students can benefit from each other’s distinctive perspectives regarding international business.
