Assessing How We Define Diversity - Seattle University

Alumni
F O C U S
calcutta club
Cultural Exchange
Alumni of Calcutta Experience reunite
Todd Waller was just 22 years old
when he held the hand of Mother
Teresa. The exchange was, as
one might expect, profound, and
set in motion by Waller’s involvement in
the Calcutta Experience, an immersion
program that began at Seattle University
in 1985.
Waller, ’86, was the
first—and sole—student
to participate in the first
year of the education and
service abroad opportunity,
in which students
volunteer with Mother
Teresa’s Missionaries
of Charity in India. For
Waller, who today is
associate director for
student life at Loyola University’s Rome
Center, the five weeks in Calcutta were
life-transforming. Take his meeting with
Mother Teresa.“She held my hand and
looked me in the eye, the look of a gentle
tiny old grandmother with her soft wrinkled
hands,” Waller recalls. “She said, ‘Simply
go back to your family, love your family, care
for your family. This is where it all begins.’”
Her words were especially prophetic,
as days after he returned to the United
States his grandfather had a stroke. “I
remember spending a sleepless night with
him in the hospital, trying to calm him
when he was crying and confused,” Waller
says. “[Mother Teresa’s] words have rung
true in small and large ways throughout
my life.”
In August, alumni of the Calcutta
Experience, including Waller, returned to
SU for a reunion and a chance to reconnect
Students are witness to abject poverty
and the very sick and dying; they also
see slivers of hope and happiness in
people who have few material possessions
but are rich in kindness.
and share recollections on their service.
The Calcutta Experience was a good precursor
for the service work he would do in
the future, Waller says.
“In the 1990s I was able to spend time
in Bosnia, which was also a life-changing
experience,” Waller says. “Calcutta helped
to prepare me for what I would see and do
while in the Balkans.”
The Calcutta Experience (now known
as the Calcutta Club) was the idea of former
SU professor Neil Young. The mission
of the program was to provide students
with a meaningful service-learning opportunity
in Calcutta. Participants typically
serve for several weeks or months as volunteers
with the Missionaries of Charity’s
organizations.
While most universities offer intenational
volunteer programs, SU is believed
to be the only university with an international
program as structured
and long-standing as
the Calcutta immersion.
The Calcutta Club,
which is built on pillars
of service, community,
culture and spirituality
affords current students
and alumni a place to
share their personal experiences
and provides
glimpses into what dayto-day
life in Calcutta is like.
The Calcutta Club also cultivates
camaraderie among those who have gone
through the program and may experience
a type of reverse culture shock when
they return.
Most participants perform their service
at Prem Dan and Khaligat, homes for the
destitute who are very sick or dying, or one
of the many orphanages in the region.
For many, the experience is at once
difficult and life affirming. Students are
witness to abject poverty and the very sick
and dying; they also see slivers of hope and
28 | Alumni Focus