Friends,
So happy to be back in Point Loma after about 17 days in China on a British Parliamentary debate tour with recent PLNU graduates Jason Anderson, Olivia Neidhart, and Alan Jaques, and incoming transfer Hugo Avalos. Hugo comes to us from Cerritos College where two of our debate team alumni teach, April Griffin and Cynthia Lavariere Arellano. All four students were terrific and represented the school well as we travelled from Beijing, to Xian and Shanghai and several other cities. It was an amazing and exhausting intercultural learning experience for all concerned, as they were partnered with Chinese national students in the two major debate tournaments in which we participated.
Special congratulations go to Communication Major Jason Anderson, who along with his Chinese partner were advanced to the Grand Finals for the top four teams at the tournament in Xian, home of the famous Terracotta warriors, where the finalists debated whether Donald Trump would make a good President for the United States in front of a packed auditorium.
We appreciate the prayers from those back home, as our group, and the larger group of 45 American students and coaches with whom we travelled, escaped serious illness and injury throughout the trip.
I just learned this morning that yesterday, less than 24 hours after our return from Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, there was a terrorist attack in that airport, injuring four people from a home made explosive device.
We are so glad to have had the opportunity to experience the many wonders we encountered, and friends we made, but we are also very glad to be home. Thanks for your support in that effort.
Skip
Skip Rutledge, Ph. D. Voice 619.849.2391
Director of Forensics Fax 619.849.7015
Professor & Chair Department Communication and Theatre
Point Loma Nazarene University e mail: skiprutledge@pointloma.edu
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." Martin Luther King, Jr.