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(deconstruction) of such assumptions and realities and a valuing of local

wisdoms; and from ethnocentricity toward an appreciation and respect for

other cultural and religious traditions.


Such conversions often push out boundaries, both for students and for


colleges and universities embedded in particular religious traditions. Here we

will examine the international education program at one small, church-

affiliated liberal arts college, addressing the motivations for the program's

inception, its relationship to the sponsoring denomination, its impact on

students, the campus culture and the church, and its promise for appropriately

educating 21st-century students. International education at Goshen College

allows the school to give at least a one-armed embrace of postmodernism while

sustaining and perhaps strengthening its relationship to Mennonite

institutions and theological commitments. Since 1968, all students at Goshen

have been required to complete a significant international education

component, and most do so through the school's Study-Service Term, which

takes students into Third World countries in Latin America, the Caribbean,

Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia. For 13 weeks, students live with middle- to

lower-income families; participate in university classes taught by nationals on

the history, culture and arts of the country; and work alongside their hosts in

short-term, low-key service projects. Although Goshen's religious affiliation

and international program create their own distinctive problems and

possibilities, such a case study should be illuminating for other church-related

schools as well.


Goshen College and the Mennonite Context


Goshen College has long had a zesty relationship -- what one observer


called a "tempestuous love affair"-- with the Mennonite Church, which


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