Editorial

¡Bienvenidos a los Estudiantes Chilenos! 

(September 14, 2005)

Lasso Online would like to extend a very warm Mason welcome to the 20 students from Trewhela’s School in Santiago, Chile, who will be spending the next two weeks with us. 

The Chilean students arrived last Friday, September 9, and will be staying in Falls Church until next Friday, September 23.  They are each staying in the home of a GM student, many of whom already participated in the program by experiencing the Chile portion of the exchange.  This fall’s visit is the second by students from Trewhela’s School; for their part, Masonites also visited Chile during our last two Spring Breaks. 

For much of their stay, the Chilean students will be traveling around the D.C. area with their chaperones from Trewhela’s School, art teacher Nena de Gatica, music teacher Ricardo Jofre and principal Doreen Bolton.  As most Masonites probably noticed, the Chilean students accompanied their Mason hosts to classes this Monday and will do so again next Monday.  The students from Trewhela’s School will also make presentations on Wednesday, September 21, at three of the Falls Church City schools.  

Programs and activities like this exchange program are not only enormously fun and exciting for all involved -- they are also a vital asset to the GM experience.  In two short weeks, we hope that the Chilean students will be able to share a small part of their own culture with Mason students and, in return, take home a piece of GM.  Students of both nationalities can benefit from the intercultural experience of discovering the overwhelming similarities and intriguing differences between George Mason and Trewhela’s School, Falls Church and Santiago, and the United States and Chile.  Hopefully, the eagerness of students from both schools to visit their international counterparts is symbolic of a future of greater communication and partnership between all members of the international community – an especially important goal in today’s fast-paced, globalized, but still uncertain, world.   

Lasso Online encourages all Masonites to help make our Chilean visitors feel at home, as well as to take this uncommon opportunity to gain new insights.  To most of us, Falls Church (despite being in the D.C. cosmopolitan “melting pot”) can still seem isolated from the bigger picture.  But perhaps in some small way – by discussing school schedules, music, or current events, or by just having fun with the Chilean students – Mason’s relationship with Trewhela’ School will help us all, regardless of which continent we hail from, broaden our view of the world while also getting to know students with whom we have so much in common.