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Autumn 2006 | Volume 29, Number 4 | Alumni

Alumni Educators Honored With Medallion Awards

Global Classrooms

THEY WERE YOUNG, brash, and convinced that one of the best aids to a developing nation was a school with a 0 percent dropout rate and a place where every student was expected and encouraged to succeed. Jim Gilson ’56 and Duane Root ’57 nursed their dream against improbable odds, and today there isn’t just one school, but 33 of them educating 3,200 children in 25 nations.

For their vision and tireless commitment to international education, Gilson and Root have been honored with the Medallion Award by the Seattle Pacific University Alumni They were young, brash, and convinced that one of the best aids to a developing nation was a school with a 0 percent dropout rate and a place where every student was expected and encouraged to succeed. Jim Gilson ’56 and Duane Root ’57 nursed their dream against improbable odds, and today there isn’t just one school, but 33 of them educating 3,200 children in 25 nations. For their vision and tireless commitment to international education, Gilson and Root have been honored with the Medallion Award by the Seattle Pacific University Alumni Association. To engage multiple cultures and negotiate with foreign governments has required an enormous personal investment from not only the two founders, but also their wives, twin sisters Margery Carper Gilson ’59 and Margaret Carper Root ’58.

Quality Schools International (QSI), a K–12 educational phenomenon headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has penetrated the independent republics of the former Soviet Union, the heart of communist China, and the emergent republics of Afghanistan and East Timor. Because most of the organization’s growth came at the request of the U.S. State Department, 21 QSI schools are located in cities that have American embassies or consulates.

“We’re known for the quality of our schools and the risk we’re willing to incur,” explains Gilson, QSI president, who was on the SPU campus in July for the organization’s 10th annual administrative conference. And talk about risks: QSI has weathered civil war, the sudden evacuation of threatened personnel, and, in one difficult case, the destruction of a school. The most recent emergency evacuation happened in May, during a violent uprising in the capital of East Timor.

Gilson believes the schools and their staff members are excellent representatives of the United States. “Even though we are international schools that attract students of many nationalities, we are known inside these countries as American schools,” he notes. “The people recognize the wholesome atmosphere we create for their children. The values we hold and teach, contrary to Hollywood-style immorality, are very compatible with what tend to be the more conservative societies in which we operate.”

That the presidents of Muslim Yemen, the first country to host a QSI school in 1972, have thus far entrusted 15 of their children to Gilson’s teachers does not surprise him. “Whether a person is an atheist, a Bible Baptist, or a Hindu, they are not going to have a problem with the honesty and integrity that we teach along with science, communication, and math skills,” he says.

“We care about what kind of people we develop,” adds Root, QSI’s vice president. “We’re like Seattle Pacific in that regard, and no wonder. SPU is where we both got our vision for education. Success of the whole person was modeled for us daily.” He remembers being instilled by his professors with an important lesson: Life is about much more than our own wealth and comfort. “We’re here,” he says, “to make the world a better place.”

Says Gilson: “We look back upon our years at Seattle Pacific as years in which the college had a major part in developing our life goals.”

It makes sense, then, that QSI teaches responsibility and concern for others while encouraging computer proficiency and high academic standards. The measurable outcomes are often impressive. QSI graduates can be found at such prestigious higher education institutions as Harvard and Stanford. Several have become respected government leaders. But in the belief that there are no “disposable” students, the words “failure” and “flunk” don’t exist in the Gilson/Root vocabulary — no matter how academically challenged a student may be.

“We help those who struggle to see time, not as a boundary, but as a resource,” says Root. “Some may have to stay an extra year but they learn that learning is not a matter of slipping by, but of knuckling under.”

For Gilson, two trips around the world are required each year to oversee the management and operation of QSI schools. A former teacher in Jordan and Tanzania, and principal of Nairobi International School in Kenya, he established QSI with plenty of experience in the ways of overseas bureaucracies. Because funds were so tight in the beginning, he had to take a teaching job with Aramaco in Saudi Arabia to finance the startup.

Before launching QSI, Root wore many hats: school band director, high school principal, and a superintendent of schools in Idaho — all important skills for overseeing the complex logistics of providing nearly three dozen schools worldwide with the best equipment and supplies. He also takes the lead in recruiting approximately 75 new staff members each year and is especially delighted by several Seattle Pacific graduates who have joined the faculty. Mark Boyd ’76, for example, was QSI’s pioneer teacher in Yemen.

“We’re always looking for more,” says Root. “It’s a huge world out there, and we need people who want to change it for the good.”

 

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President Philip Eaton offers a more complete view of education: Learning is “a bigger story than our own little pieces of intellectual mastery.”

Advising Future Physicians
In 2006, SPU achieved a 100 percent medical school acceptance rate through its unique, longtime approach to “shepherding” premed students.

Fiction on a Small Canvas
A new volume celebrates the best in Christian short stories — and leads off with a creation of SPU Adjunct Professor Mary Kenagy.

Goodwill Goalkeeping
Star soccer player Marcus Hahnemann ’93 wins fans in Europe, and represents America in the 2006 World Cup.

My Response
Principal and SPU doctoral student Karol Pulliam considers the classroom implications of John Medina’s 12 brain rules.

Back-Cover Art
Class of 2000 alumna Anne Faith Nicholls gives Response readers a “Page One Examination.”


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