Alumnus responds to Chancellor Kent Syverud’s message, ‘Our Thoughts are with Paris’

Dear Chancellor Syverud:

I appreciate your thoughts and concerns regarding the Paris, France tragedy in the spirit of Pan Am 103 that carried our students from Florence, Italy. Many years ago, having not chosen to go to Florence, I chose Guatemala for a semester while a student at SU. Out of curiosity I downloaded the “SU Abroad” website and sadly learned that Syracuse abandoned its program in Guatemala without a matching program in Central America, Mexico or the Caribbean (Cuba for example). And yet we daily experience terrorism resulting in murder, rape, robbery and terror in our own backyard. That includes indigent unaccompanied Central American girls facing accounting for 74 percent of the most recent surge. Now we have presidential candidates from both parties, including two Cuban Americans and a former secretary of state, focused on immigration reform and major border issues dealing with illegal drugs and arms shipments.

Mexican and Central Americans constitute two-thirds of the Latino community, the U.S.’s largest minority group (17%).  Why Syracuse University with its international tradition chooses only to look across the ocean and not on the other side of both borders to the south leaves me wondering why. Perhaps you can help me.

Sincerely,
Bruce Cort Daniels ’64