From the West Coast
Just as the spirit of Bombay differs from that of Kolkata, so too, in the US, the East Coast with its prime city New York of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Ground Zero fame is quite different from the West Coast with its Los Angeles, the Hollywood city and San Francisco with its Golden Gate Bridge. The University of Stanford and the University of California with its many campuses along the east coast, too, differ from the Ivy league eastern universities of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth and Princeton.
However, in all of them the Alumni are a constant and towering feature. Stanford Alumni association is 125 years old and has members in over 150 countries. The University of Stanford is right in the heart of the Silicon Valley and has computer science and digital innovation research as its mainstay. Though over a century old, the phenomenal growth the University has undergone is a feature that began from the late nineteen seventies.
I am dreaming of a day when Siliguri with its Commercial Lead in the state and the region, coming to make a mark through the college alumni in effecting a landmark growth for service over the years. I want to congratulate the leadership of the Alumni and all the members for passionately promoting, in their own ways, the cause of the institution that is ever on the look out to provide the best opportunities for growth to every new student entering into the College.
Together, if we attempt to create ‘a thing of beauty’, as Dominic Colney reminds us, not only the beauty created but all those who make it happen too, shall become ‘Joy forever.’
In the spirit of education for change,
Fr George Thadathil, sdb
In San Francisco on Sabbatical
(Hosted by Don Bosco/Salesian Alumni)