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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodists together |
February 2005 |
University of Indianapolis
extends campus to Galilee
By Daniel R. Gangler
INDIANAPOLIS - The University of Indianapolis presents itself as home to 218 international students from 63 nations as part of its ongoing life. Now the United Methodist-related school has formed a new partnership with a Mar Elias Campus in the village of Ibillin, Galilee, Israel.
The south Indianapolis campus has already formed partnerships with institutions of higher education in China, Taiwan, Japan, on Cyprus and with the University of Indianapolis-Athens in Greece.
Broadening the university's offerings in the Mediterranean, a campus in Israel is a natural extension, according to the school's publicity.
However, that extension becomes a unique venture with a unique school and individual. Abuna (meaning Father in Arabic) Elias Chacour (pronounced SHA-coor), a Melkite Greek Catholic priest, bishop of Jerusalem and president of Mar Elias Educational Institutions. Chacour, 65, a Palestinian Arab and Israeli citizen, heads the only school in Israel composed of Christian Arabs, Jews and Muslims.
In a personal interview at the University of Indianapolis, Chacour told Together, the school he founded 21 years ago that 4,500 students ranging from kindergarten to post secondary education, can now boast of its university status. Students in Israel can receive a bachelor's degree from the University of Indianapolis in communications, computer science and environmental science with chemistry, areas offering the most promising opportunities for employment in Israel according to Chacour.
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Chacour's mission is to "bring about peace through education, dialogue and reconciliation." |
Mar Elias has received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association and from the State of Israel's Committee for Higher Education following an intense three-year process. The permit is good for three years. More than 260 letters were exchanged between the school and the Israeli government in the process.
Chacour's mission is to "bring about peace through education, dialogue and reconciliation." He told Together the Mar Elias Campus will fill a higher education void in Galilee, especially among Palestinians; it will create a model of academic excellence and research in the region; it will prepare young people for careers with strong employment potential; and it will cultivate dialogue and understanding among people of all faiths and nationalities.
Vision becomes reality
Chacour's vision will come to reality this year. He was on campus preparing to bring the first pilot group of 80 Mar Elias (meaning mount of light) university students to the Indianapolis campus in 2005. These participating students have the potential of receiving a University of Indianapolis diploma. However, the $4,000 needed for each student may prevent some students from making the 8,000-mile trip. To help offset these expenses, the university is raising funds for student scholarships so no one is left behind.
Likewise within the atmosphere of learning by experience, University of Indianapolis students eventually will have the opportunity to travel to Mars Elias when the violence has lessened. But whether or not they travel to Israel, Chacour and university officials believe UINDY students will benefit from the interaction with the Israeli students who come here to study.
Its links with the University of Indianapolis transcends 25 years of history. Now a retired United Methodist minister, the Rev. George St. Angelo, established the first relationship between the two school in the 1980s when he was a member of the UINDY board of trustees. Today seven faculty members and five courses of study are offered to Mar Elias university students.
The Mar Elias university campus is a vision realized for Chacour, who became a priest following a unique life journey. A child at the age of eight, Chacour was evicted child from his native village of Biram in Upper Galilee in Arab Palestine by the Zionist regime. They placed him and his family in a refugee camp within the borders of their native country following Israeli statehood in 1947. He received his formal education in Paris and at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. As a young priest, he came to Ibillin in 1965.
As a result of his vision of peace through education, he received the 1994 World Methodist Peace Award, the French Legion of Honor and the Niwano Peace Prize of Japan. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times. He has written about his life experiences and Mar Elias in Blood Brother, an autobiography, and We Belong to the Land. Both books are available through Cokesbury at www.cokesbury.com.
Palestinian-Israeli hope
Unlike sharp critics of either Palestinians or Israelis, Chacour seeks a peace between the two. He told Together that he does not see separate Palestinian and Israel states, but Israel as one country with a diversity of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Druze (a small sect of Islam that broke from the main Muslim tradition centuries ago).
"All are created in the image of God," said Chacour. "So why not be united despite the diversity of religious beliefs and historic origins?" Amidst conflicts in the Middle East, he points out an irony of history - Iraq is the native land of Abraham who migrated from Ur to present-day Israel. Both Palestinians and Jews live on the same homeland. He reasons: Why should one give it up for the other, when they both can share it?
"God is not territorial. But people need a homeland. It was never a problem for me that the Jews, too, wanted a homeland. I wish the best for Israel, But I do not agree that I and mine should lose our homeland because they needed theirs," he said.
"When there was a bus bombing in Haifa (a half-hour away), a call went out from the hospital there for blood donations. We at Mar Elias College said that we would give our blood. They sent about 15 Israeli nurses out to Ibillin, and more than 300 or our students gave blood in one day. Some of the nurses were weeping as young Palestinians gave their blood for injured Israeli children," he said. "Being a peacemaker means getting completely involved, as Jesus did. In solidarity."
That is both his vision and what Chacour seeks to share with Hoosiers as he works with UNINDY President Jerry Israel, the faculty and the staff to embark on this journey in education and peace.
For more information about the Mar Elias/University of Indianapolis program or about how to help underwrite students' costs, please call Dr. Lynn Youngblood at 1-800-232-8634 or 317-788-6095, or e-mail youngblood@uindy.edu, or write Dr. Lynn Youngblood, University of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46227-3697.
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008