At London Heathrow/What Day IS It?/post 11p.m. on 26 March

Well, it is 2:00a.m. Chicago time and 8:00 a.m. here. I arrived about 2 hours ago and met up with some of the delegation. Several of us are sitting in Lounge G (United) waiting for the boarding call for Jet Airways flight to Mumbai. Karen Hughes is sitting across from me working on her speech for tomorrow. We are going to be flying in several different groups--9 hours to Mumbai. I think I will pick this up when it is a little less hectic and post it with a little more news and maybe a picture or two.

Hello again, everyone. I am half a world away and can't begin to tell you how much there is to soak up in the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic country that is a world itself--India. Half of our delegation arrived at our hotel in Mumbai (Bombay) around midnight Sun/Mon wee hours--others in the delegation, delayed by airline woes, didn't arrive til 6 a.m. We were scheduled for a briefing on the day's events at 9:30, mercifully moved til 10:00 a.m. I still am a little in disbelief that it is only the first full day of the visit.

The State Department officers and staff have been nothing short of fabulous in their attention to detail and their commitment to the message that we are here for our country to build bridges and welcome students and scholars from India to our country and find pathways for our students and faculty to spend time in this incredibly complex country. While I am going to be more brief than I would like in this posting because we must leave the hotel at 5:15 a.m. on Tuesday to catch a train to Agra, I do want to share a couple of things and, if all goes well, post a picture or two.

This morning, we six presidents (Mark Emmert from U. Washington/Seattle, John Lilley from Baylor, John Bowen from Johnson and Wales, Jim Oblinger from NC State, and Eileen Wilson Oleyaran from Kalamazoo College) met with Karen Hughes and Tom Farrell and wonderful staff together with Michael Owen and Larry Schwartz who are State Dept officials here in India. We were briefed on the meetings of the day--first with an incredible array of college and university officials in a roundtable discussion and then with the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.

There is such fertile ground for building relationships with the Indian community. I had no idea that 55% of the population in India is under 30 of years of age and the demand for education far exceeds the supply of available places for students. Education is valued so highly in India that parents will skip a meal to save for the possibility of making and/or supporting their children's access. Education is prized second only to food and before clothing and even shelter. We heard about and then from the amazing vice-chancellor from Pune who has overcome the most impossibly adverse of circumstances and risen to be an inspiring spokesman and advocate for education. He was one among many whose passion for access to learning was evident.

The business community in Mumbai, with whom we met before lunch, in front of lots of tv cameras and photographers, is interested in finding ways to invest in higher education--of every kind imaginable. More on this later. The fact that the six presidents who are members of the delegation represent the broad spectrum of American higher education options is important beyond belief. Karen Hughes delivers a consistent and powerful message that we realize the importance of our relationship with India in and for the knowledge-age of the 21st century where education doesn't just drive the economy, it transforms lives. (She refers to community colleges as the institutions that take people from where they are in their lives to where they want to be. All of the presidents understand and prize the diversity of our missions and roles and I know that we will communciate that throughout our visit.)

Our last meeting of the day was at and with the Times of India Group--the largest (I think this is right) media group in the world. They deliver 1000 papers a minute!!! to the vast population throughout India. Those who read newspapers here spend an average of 44 minutes a day devouring the news in print...and unlike the US, newspaper circulation is projected to continue to increase.

After an incredibly visionary presentation on the importance of education and some give and take that could easily have gone on for a much longer time we zipped out to our waiting vans and made our way through traffic the likes of which I have only seen in China--not only are stoplights suggestions rather than directives--there's no such thing as a lane. Our lives were in the capable hands of our drivers, and I saw only one fender bump (a moped into a taxicab). I will try to find the picture and include it....believe me, it doesn't do justice to the "adventure."

Thanks to the "expediters" --and they really are magicians--we arrived at the domestic airport, were handed our boarding passes--our checked baggage had gone on before us--went to a private waiting area, were taken through securities (ladies are "wanded" in a private booth; men go through the usual metal detector stuff), boarded the bus to our plane and took off for our less than 2 hour flight to Delhi. I had the great good fortune to be seated next to a journalist turned tv executive. We talked about everything from education and politics to the values of our families--his son and daughter-in-law live in Cleveland. He was very interested in the mission of community colleges and particularly interested in the fact that the chairman of our board of trustees is from India. I told him Jody's story and that I would be visiting with Jody's nephew and brother on Saturday and traveling to the school in which Jody has been so instrumental in supporting.

Ok--I just looked at the clock. I am going to take one stab at the pictures....but they may happen on the next post--post-Agra.