INTERLINK directors and teachers help students open wide the beckoning windows and doors of Possibility. English language acquisition is the lever. Cross-cultural learning is the view beyond. At INTERLINK, we invite and prepare the student to begin a life-long pilgrimage of learning. It must begin well. Linguistic competency and academic skills provide important preparation. But beyond these, INTERLINK's Mission Statement calls on us to help our students learn to "bridge those precious differences that give us roots and rudders in an ever shrinking and restless world."

INTERLINK's cross-cultural learning emphasis is designed to increase students' understanding of one's own and others' cultures; it will inform respect for the worth and consequence of the norms, values, and behaviors in all cultures; and it will allow the student both to discern and communicate cultural differences with sensitive and confident purpose. Thus, we better prepare each student not only to be adept internationally but to be able, in Francis Bacon's summary phrase, "to retain one's own dignity, without intruding upon the liberty of others."

If INTERLINK Language Centers are to compete and serve well the purposes and goals expressed in our Mission Statement, cross-cultural learning must especially and uniquely inform every aspect of our instructional curriculum, of our services to students, and of our own personal relationships with them. Some of this may have immediate impact on student needs for the positive and smooth adjustment to a new educational, social and cultural environment; but cross-cultural learning and the teaching of it at INTERLINK aspire to achieve much more: to prepare and counsel students for future success in life.

Although ever student-centered, we are equally self-conscious, sensitive and humble, in recognizing our own need. As cross-cultural educators, we must ever be alert and adroit in response to the different assumptions, expectations, needs, and surprises confounding the individual encounter with a new culture. We too must be eager and continuing participants in cross-cultural learning. A further challenge is to insinuate, promote, and support cross-cultural learning at our host institutions and in our communities. INTERLINK's purpose and function at each of our universities give to the Center Director and colleagues both opportunity and responsibility to be active participants in and contributors to international issues and activities on campus and beyond. The INTERLINK program can and should be recognized and utilized as a significant part of the wider education occurring on the campus. Effective efforts in these areas almost always offer expansive potential for both INTERLINK and the university.

In the vibrant, creative pursuit of cross-cultural learning . . . in our classrooms, on our campuses, and throughout our communities . . . we then do "dwell in Possibility." Such cross-cultural learning is an INTERLINK hallmark, and ever its own reward.

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