Making Internationalization Real

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Although your article concerning There and Back: Notes from Abroad was a wonderful introduction to student contributions toward internationalization, an important point was completely overlooked: The event you covered was a joint magazine debut and holiday open house co-sponsored by Harvard-Radcliffe Students Abroad (HRSA) and HR-NEAR (Network for Educational Alternatives and Readjustment).

Editors and Founders of HRSA deserve congratulations for a job well-done. However, your blatant omission of NEAR from your front page article was frustrating because NEAR is both fromally joined in a constitutional alliance with HRSA and has a similar goal: to encourage enriching experiences outside of Harvard during undergraduate years.

NEAR's philosophy is that students need more than a few words or an article to inspire travel abroad; they need concrete assistance. Our goal is to form a community of students who will facilitate student transition periods before and after leaves of absence through social events, newsletters and areferral service.

As mentioned in yhour article, time spent abroad can be extremely rewarding. However, sometimes finding the right opportunity and the support to make such decisions is difficult. Consequently, we are organizing a network of students who have already experienced time away from Harvard to provide information into both the logistical and personal aspects of their experiences.

Although this network is still far from complete, it is presently available to all interested students.

Receiving no recognition of these efforts, despite discussions with representatives of The Crimson, is disheartening. In response, I have one message for The Crimson: the road to internationalization is more complicated than a high profile magazine.

In the course of student efforts at internationalization, The Crimson must cover the pragmatic along with the glossy. John A. Emerson   Co-chair, HR-NEAR