Exchange Program

When Mario Buckley returned to Brazil on July 7, the Hilton household in Ellicott City briefly lost its international presence. This presence has become the norm for the Hiltons, who have been hosts to American Field Service exchange students each year since 1995. "Our youngest three kids have always had an exchange student in the house," said Mary Hilton, who serves as hosting coordinator for the AFS Greater Baltimore Chapter. Things will return to normal for the Hiltons in the fall with the arrival of Alejandro Seghezzi from Argentina.

Morgan State University is establishing a student exchange program with Hubei University in China. The presidents of the two institutions signed an agreement formalizing the program Thursday afternoon on Morgan State's campus in North Baltimore. Hubei University was founded in 1931 and is located in central China, about 500 miles west of Shanghai. Hubei has established international student exchange programs with almost 70 universities, according to the university's website.

THIS SUMMER, 15 students from North County High School participated in a three-week German Exchange Program with the Rotteck Gymnasium, a high school in Freiburg, Germany. From June 17 until July 9, the NCHS German students traveled to Germany, lived with families there and attended classes at the high school. The students participating in the program were Gary Brown, Jennifer Brown, Christina Crook, Jill Davis, Brad Faley, Lisa Fol- derauer, Christina Krantz, Thomas Krueger, James Metzger, Angela Moritz, Vonzella Parker, Kristina Robinson, Brandy Thompson, Ashley Vogelsang and Kevin Webber.

Japanese cultural exchange student Minami Tajima remembers one of her first visits to an American restaurant. She and about two dozen other students from Japan visited Anne Arundel County last year, and after she befriended Arundel High School student Taylor Niemetz, the two went to a steakhouse in the Waugh Chapel area. "So this is a Japanese restaurant," Niemetz said. "They're Chinese,'" Tajima replied, referring to the cooks. Talk about cultural awareness. Still, Tajima, a student from Sagami Ono High School in a city near Tokyo, said she enjoys American food.

In a surprising victory for union organizers, electricians from Eastern Europe who came to the United States under a visitors exchange program have voted unanimously to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The vote, which was formally tabulated in Baltimore yesterday, means the IBEW will have the right to negotiate a contract for the workers with USA-IT Inc. , the Greenbelt company that brought hundreds of workers to the United States from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and other Eastern European countries.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. State Department consultant testified yesterday that a South Carolina restaurant operator referred to foreign exchange students who signed up for hospitality management training as "slave labor." Yael Nagler, who was hired by the State Department to examine the South Carolina and Florida operations of the American Hospitality Academy, told a three-member panel that other hotel and resort managers told her that AHA trainees had been used as cheap labor to fill low-level, hard-to-fill positions.

More than a dozen residents urged the Columbia Association's governing board last night to spare from cuts a student exchange program, a small portion of the huge homeowners association's proposed $46 million budget for next year."

A Glen Burnie High School teacher will spend six weeks in Morocco this fall, learning how students who speak French and Arabic soak up the nuances of yet another language -- English. Erin Sullivan, 32, was awarded an all-expenses-paid trip last month as part of the Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange program operated by the U.S. State Department. She said she applied because she wanted to learn where her students in the school's rapidly expanding English for Speakers of Other Languages program get their drive and discipline.

Leslie C. Norins, a 1958 Johns Hopkins University graduate, has established a charitable trust to fund an exchange program for students and young science faculty between Hopkins and an Australian research center, the university announced Monday. In an effort to provide other young scientists with the same opportunities for international collaboration that he experienced after receiving his degree from the Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Norins is endowing the exchange program with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, a bioscience research center.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who previously has opposed Baltimore's efforts to launch a needle exchange program, said yesterday he would support emergency legislation allowing the city to dispense clean syringes to drug users.His announcement, which was quickly embraced by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, came a day after the mayor and city Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson said they intended to soon start an exchange program for about 1,000 drug users.In seeking to prevent intravenous drug users from spreading the AIDS virus through shared syringes, the city has lined up a prospective clinic in an impoverished neighborhood with heavy drug traffic.

Leslie C. Norins, a 1958 Johns Hopkins University graduate, has established a charitable trust to fund an exchange program for students and young science faculty between Hopkins and an Australian research center, the university announced Monday. In an effort to provide other young scientists with the same opportunities for international collaboration that he experienced after receiving his degree from the Hopkins Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Norins is endowing the exchange program with the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, a bioscience research center.

The father of a 16-year-old St. Paul's School for Girls student who died in a boating accident in Australia said Wednesday he has not set a date for a funeral in Baltimore. "The body is still in Australia and will not return until next week. The burial will not be until late next week," said Timothy L. Mullin Jr., Cameron O'Neill-Mullin's father. The family resides in Lutherville. Mullin, an attorney with the firm of Miles and Stockbridge, said he was also planning a "life celebration" in her honor "in about a month.

Most Americans are introduced to a foreign language in a school setting. Of course, you can always spend a lot of money on a special computer program, a series of CDs or DVDs, or an exchange program to become fluent. Or, you can simply try the Janet's World Vehicular Immersion System of language learning, administered absolutely free through your car's GPS system. Yes, in just three weeks, you can become proficient in directional conversation. Imagine impressing your friends with the phrase: "In 300 feet, exit right" in Vietnamese!

Individuals are being sought to participate in a Group Study Exchange Program of Rotary International by the Crofton Rotary Club. The exchange opportunity is open to men and women between the ages of 25 and 40 who have several years of experience in their full-time occupations. The program runs May 1-29. Each team member will be provided a round-trip ticket to the host country. Local members in the area will provide meals, lodging and group travel within the Rotary district. For more information and an application, call 410-721-2519 or 410-451-1900.

Military takes funds that could save crabs Concerning the loss of funding for the research project on increasing the crab population in the bay, I think it is helpful to put the amount of money spent on the project in 2007 - about $4 million - in perspective ("Md. crab project loses U.S. funding," Jan. 7). Including appropriations for the wars abroad, total defense spending for 2008 is likely to be about $2 billion a day. The $4 million spent on research on increasing crab populations in the largest estuary of the United States amounts to about three minutes' worth of defense spending.

The University of Baltimore's School of Law and a university in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, Iraq, have signed the first formal partnership between law schools in the two countries, officials announced yesterday. Under the agreement, UB law students might one day study in Iraq - where the rule of law was enshrined in the Code of Hammurabi more than 4,000 years ago. However, for security reasons, the first step will more likely be to bring Iraqis here for graduate legal study and research, said the law school's dean, Phillip J. Closius.

Ai Okazaki extended her arms away from her body to indicate the large stomach of a sumo wrestler, then she wrinkled her face. The students in Candee Brodsky's Spanish class at Atholton High School in Howard County burst into laughter, along with Ai and her two Japanese friends."

Prodded by a highly critical court ruling, a State Department panel reversed itself and voted unanimously yesterday to allow a South Carolina firm to resume bringing foreign students to the United States to learn the hospitality industry. In a nine-page decision and 44-page recap of its findings in the case, the three-member panel concluded that its earlier decision to bar the American Hospitality Academy's participation in the J-1 exchange program was not supported by the facts. While AHA acknowledged that it had violated program requirements, the panel said many problems had been corrected and described the revocation action as "extreme."

One highlight of Dutch teacher Kees van Kemenade's first trip to the United States was a visit to Harpers Ferry, W.Va., site of the 1859 abolitionist raid by John Brown. Van Kemenade always tells his students about it during American history classes. "To be in a spot where something took place makes all the difference in the world," he said. "It all comes alive." Van Kemenade wants to include a trip to Harpers Ferry if he can set up a student exchange with Annapolis Area Christian School's upper school.