Ashland came out to celebrate Sunday evening as the Amigo Club welcomed over twenty visiting faculty and students from the Universidad de Guanajuato. SOU faculty and staff as well community members filled the Ashland Community Center with balloons, music, and, of course, great food and lots of hospitality.
Psychology faculty Dr. Josie Wilson and Dr. Mary Russell-Miller master-minded the visits—and the visitors have a packed week ahead of them. Josie has been coordinating the trip for UG students to study our health care system for Latinos, while Mary has been working to have UG faculty study our aging services systems. Many folks from campus and the community stepped up to provide home-stays and participate in the week’s activities.
Students will attend seminars and visit La Clinica del Valle, our own OHSU Nursing lab, and other facilities around the region. The faculty group will attend seminars and visit the Rogue Valley Manor and Skylark Memory Care and Assisted Living.
Despite all the preparation and planning, some things never go the way they’re supposed to. The Guanajuato faculty boarded what they thought was a flight to Medford—but, to their shock, it landed in Bakersfield. (Have you ever wondered whether airline personnel really look at your boarding pass?) Rather than arriving in Medford Saturday night, the faculty ended up being sent to Seattle for the night and flying to Medford on Sunday morning.
It was a traveler’s nightmare that, luckily, became just another tale we can add to the rich, forty-year chronicle of the SOU-UG partnership.