A WORD FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear PiA Alumni, Family, and Friends,

I write to you from the home stretch of “the Asia trip” – shorthand for what used to be an annual trip to visit Fellows in their posts, to meet with host organizations, and to connect with alumni, friends,

Over the past three weeks, Program Director Matt Hernández and I visited seven of our Fellows, met with host organizations, alumni, and friends, and cultivated new partnerships in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Almaty, Kazakhstan; and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. It was Matt’s first trip as a Program Director and my first time making such a our colleagues at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek. In each of these interactions on our journey, I felt the warmth, appreciation, and ease of reconnecting with old friends.

Matt and I also had the privilege of meeting new friends of PiA. We conducted PiA’s first official visit to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. We were honored to speak at Nobel Fest V, where we shared the physical and virtual stage with Nobel Laureates and luminaries in science, tech, and education. It was a humbling experience to be in such company and to be in dialogue with the Kazakhstani students and educators who joined the conference in person, as well as the virtual audience from Central Asia and beyond. As we shared PiA’s vision and framework for cultural exchange, it was exhilarating to see how deeply our mission, vision and values to reconnect with old friends – from our closest contacts at KIMEP University, with whom PiA has enjoyed 28 years of partnership, to our Country Advisors in Mongolia, who recalled with great fondness the very first PiA Fellows who served in Mongolia some 15 years ago and the many who have followed in their footsteps, and

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• resonated with the audience. In a spirited Q&A, over tea and cookies after our talk, and in follow-up meetings, our new friends and colleagues showed us how eager they were to embrace the platform for learning, sharing, and collaborating across difference that PiA so effectively provides.

Finally, I had the honor of joining the inaugural PiA Talk Forum in Taipei, an event organized by PiA Country Advisor Pei-Ting Sarah Chou and co-hosted with A4P, the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton. Organized around the theme of “International Talents in Taiwan,” our panel and audience discussed how diverse talent can come together in Taiwan to create positive impact. Later, over pork belly, I reconnected with four PiA alumni who have made their homes in Taiwan and who are all carrying forward PiA’s mission as teachers at Taipei American School.

Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” This year, I traveled to landscapes – some familiar, some unfamiliar – but I saw everything with new eyes. The colors were brighter, the connections were warmer, and time seemed to slow down. All this to say: this month was a crash course in the enduring power of PiA.

Just as this year’s Asia trip has helped me to see our work with fresh perspective, I hope that the stories in this edition of Pacific Bridges spark interest and curiosity about PiA’s work, call you to reconnect with an old friend from your fellowship, your host community, or the PiA family, and help you to see with fresh eyes the power and importance of building bridges across difference.

Yours sincerely,