On April 2008 Gordon College was honored to host a delegation from its Swiss counterpart, the University of Education Thurgau. Their college was represented by Prof. Preisig, Ms. Jaritz-Cardona and Mr. Bernhard, who had come to Haifa to finalize an exchange program between the Swiss and Gordon.

While the head of the English department, Rivka Bar Hama, who served as a committee of one, showed the delegation around Haifa, cooks at the Chinese restaurant of the Nov hotel were busy over a hot stove to prepare the guests’ first kosher Chinese dinner. In the evening, the English staff met for an informal get-together over eggrolls and sweet-and-sour chicken. The food was kind to the palette and the conversation was light. At least three languages were bandied back and forth, Hebrew, English and German. In the end we all understood each other.

One of the high points of the evening was a plate of Hebrew language fortune cookies. Our Swiss guests carefully folded the small strips of paper and saved them as a souvenir.

We are looking forward to having several Swiss exchange students in our English department next fall, and expect to reciprocate by sending a small group of our sophomores to Switzerland.