Professors from the US visited the new AUCA campus

September 7, 2015

On September 2, 2015 a group of professors from Harvard University, University of Chicago, Yale University, University of Stanford, Columbia University, National Geographic and the Smithsonian visited the new AUCA campus.

The tour of AUCA was a part of the study-tours under the name “The Five Stans,” which covers all five of the Central Asian countries. The main aim of the tour is comparing the educational system of different countries.

The tour guide gives lectures to the group when they arrive to each country. The first lecture was in Bishkek on the theme: Central Asia--Real and Imagined.

The group also visited the local Kyrgyz high school and witnessed the First Bell Celebration.

“This Central Asian area of the world is unknown to us. We get very little news about it and so we don’t know very much about it. It’s been the center of the world for a very long time; many things have happened here and yet it’s really not a focus of what we learn in the American school system or what we hear about on the news. We were very curious to meet the people and see what it’s like,” one of the participants of the tour Steve Schramm said.

While visiting AUCA, the professors met with the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Bermet Tursunkulova. She talked at length with the group about AUCA's history, the different programs AUCA offers, the New Generation Academy (NGA), the university donors, and more.

During the group’s short stay in Bishkek, they had the opportunity to experience many different Kyrgyz traditions like eating Kyrgyz cuisine at a local Kyrgyz family's house, watching the national horse games show, crafting felt objects, participating in setting up a yurt, hearing a traditional folklore concert and listening to Manaschi Baike chant the epic Manas.

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