EMILY SINGLEY
Contributor

In 2010, Vancouver will host the Winter Olympics, and Fairleigh Dickinson’s Canadian campus is two blocks from where the indoor sports are going to take place.
The campus, which has become a destination for students from Asia and Europe, has 100 students. The hope is that the Olympics will give FDU-Vancouver more exposure.
“The idea is to continue the mission of Fairleigh Dickinson, to be a place where you look to education as being a global experience rather than a national or state organization,” said Cecil Abrahams, Vancouver campus provost.
FDU-Vancouver is already preparing the campus for the surge of people from other countries that will be in the vicinity for the Olympics. Abrahams said students attending Fairleigh Dickinson will offer a language service for people coming to see the Olympics who do not speak English. “Our students will give them help with translation and interpretation. We will serve as a language center in Vancouver,” he said.
Students are also involved in other areas of planning for the Olympics.
Zeyna Berdan, a business student at the Vancouver campus, said, “The students are all talking about the excitement of having the Olympics in Vancouver. Some of us are volunteers with the Olympics. We get Olympics job opportunities sent to us from FDU-Vancouver Student Services.”
Berdan added that some students have applied to be torch carriers in the opening and closing ceremonies.
There are numerous benefits for Fairleigh Dickinson students at the Vancouver campus, and the Olympics being there make it an opportunity to be a part of history.
However, the most important benefit to having the Olympics near an FDU campus is “the exposure the campus is going to get,” Abrahams said. “We have an American university in a Canadian city and yet, we have the same ideals. We will be able to showcase the philosophy of FDU and the quality of its education.”
Preparing for the Olympics will begin months before the actual event takes place. Abrahams said many new classes will be available to students. One of these classes relates to Olympic sports.