Former International Business Students Celebrate Inaugural Anniversary The weekend of Oct. 12-14, 2007, marked the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the inauguration of an exchange program between UGA and the prestigious Dutch business school, Nijenrode Business Universiteit, in Breukelen, The Netherlands. Begun at UGA through the efforts of Professor Mark Green of the Terry College of Business, this program saw the first group of six exchange students from Nijenrode arrive in Athens in the fall of 1972.
Four of the original six students were back in Athens this October along with more than twenty other former students who had participated in the exchange program during the years 1972 through 1987. They were joined by other friends made in the course of their studies at UGA.
Since 1981 this group of loyal alumni has met every five years to celebrate their long friendships and to reminisce about their happy, and occasionally zany, student days. Distances have not deterred the group from its reunion gathering, which draws its participants from all points of the globe. The reunion weekend includes visits to familiar haunts, a scavenger hunt to introduce the returning alumni to new venues, and a Saturday banquet which affords the opportunity for old tales to be retold with new embellishments. Over the course of the weekend new friends are often made, this year being no exception.
Two talented flautists from the Hodgson School of Music performed prior to the banquet and then assumed the role of convivial guests for the meal itself.
Whatever else might be transpiring in Athens in the fall of 2012, the 40th Anniversary Nijenrode-UGA program reunion is bound to be celebrated with style and spirit. Any former participant or friend of the exchange program interested in joining the next reunion may telephone Dr. Robert Kuhne at USA 610-964-9200 or Morgan Robertson, Esq. at USA 770-424-1234 (ext.11).
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