Judith Van Dyck 1/18/05

Associate Director

IELP and Intl Special Programs

PortlandStateUniversity

Department of Applied Linguistics
P.O. Box 751
Portland, Oregon97207

Dear Ms. Van Dyck,

I am writing today in support of Edwin Tenis and Alexander Gálvez. These two young men are founding members of the Transiciones Disability Association of Antigua Guatemala, a community partner of the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department here at PortlandState. In their roles as members of Transiciones’ management team, Edwin and Alex frequently travel to the U.S. to network and fundraise for their organization. As players on the Guatemalan National Wheelchair Basketball team they also compete as honorary members of the Wheelblazers, (a Wheelchair Basketball team sponsored by the Portland Trailblazers.) Because they have been able to develop strong ties to the Oregon chapters of Rotary International, they spend much of their time in Portland. When they are here, my wife Manya and I host them at our house.

Because of accessibility issues and financial constraints, they are unable to attend university classes in Guatemala. However, Edwin and Alex’s becoming fluent in English and acquiring a University education are critical to the long-term survival of their organization. For the past year, as their schedules permit, they have taken ESL classes through the department of Applied Linguistics. This has improved their English significantly and we are told their presence and life experiences have added a unique and valued perspective to these classes.

When PortlandState has business in Guatemala, (for example our program Connecting Educational Communities, which takes students there during the summer) Transiciones provides us with valuable security information and logistic support. In addition, their contacts in the Guatemalan medical community help us ensure a rapid response should there be a medical emergency during our stay. Our continued relationship with Transiciones is an example of the type of authentic partnerships PSU’s Internationalization initiative demands.

Recently, it has been made clear to us that PSU’s ESL program can no longer afford to continue giving Edwin and Alex free English classes on a drop in basis. Since they are unable to afford the classes themselves we hope the University can accept them as scholarship students. Their plan is to achieve a level of English proficiency that will enable them to matriculate into general classes and begin working on a PSU Degree. Since this is still in the future, at this time we ask for your help in securing scholarship student status for these two individuals. Those of us who work with Edwin and Alex know their value to the University far outweighs these costs. Thank you for your consideration of this request and we look forward to answering any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

Mark Wubbold- Finance and Administration

Manya Wubbold- Spanish