APEX program brings Pakistani exchange students to Sauk Valley Community College

DIXON – An international agreement between three colleges is helping to bridge the cultural divide between the U.S. and Pakistan.

The American Pakistan Educational Exchange program began in October 2023 as a cooperation between Sauk Valley Community College in Dixon, Bristol Community College in Massachusetts and Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, Pakistan. The program brings students and faculty from Kinnaird to spend a week at each of the host colleges, where they will sit in on classes and work alongside American students on projects that they present toward the end of their stay.

Shanzay Kashif is a food science and human nutrition major at Kinnaird. Her group is working on a project related to childhood trauma.

“We wanted to address the personality factor and how criticism from others plays a role,” Kashif said. “We wanted to show that people are a certain way usually not by their own choice but by things that are working in the back of the mind. A lot of our research came back to how parents treat their children.”

Zubda Zia-Ur-Rehman, an assistant professor of economics at Kinnaird, said the program started when she visited a local workshop run by an American professor.

“Professor Paul Edleman, who teaches political science at Sauk Valley [Community College], was in Pakistan conducting a workshop, and I just happened to be attending,” she said. “I asked him if I could bring students from Pakistan to the U.S., and the rest is history. He just made it happen.”

Edelmen and SVCC recently worked on another project in Pakistan. On Tuesday, Oct. 29, SVCC held an exhibit for that project.

“We went to two rural villages in Pakistan this past summer to work with secondary school students around storytelling,” Edleman said. “We donated some old digital cameras and had their students go out in the community and take photos of things that are important to them, and then write a story about why it’s important.”

Edleman said the APEX program tries to recruit individuals from a variety of academic departments.

“They allow the faculty from each of their departments to nominate a few of their top students,” Edleman said. “Then, in conjunction with the faculty from that department, their director of the program interviews them and selects the students that they want to bring.”

This year, six students and three faculty members made the overseas trip. They visited Bristol for a week before coming to Dixon on Thursday, Oct. 24. They stayed with SVCC faculty administrators and other volunteer hosts, including Linda Giesen, a Dixon Rotary Club member and a former warden at the Dixon Correctional Center.

“I’ve had to learn a few things along the way, like customs related to food preparation,” Giesen said. “Thankfully, I had help from my friend and Pakistani neighbor, Sarwat Hanif, who is entertaining us at her house tomorrow. These are all charming and thoughtful young ladies.”

Zia-Ur-Rehman said that since their arrival in the U.S., the group has visited sites in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb, the Nachusa Grasslands, the Whaling Museum and sites related to SVCC’s agriculture program. The girls even got to squeeze in a little time for shopping.

“We got to ride a combine in Dixon and see the bisons,” Uneeza Mahboob Rana said. “It’s been so much fun, and everyone has been so nice to us since we arrived.”

Rana is an English literature major and a senior at Kinnaird.

“We’ve been running around everywhere trying to soak up everything that we can,” Rana said. “One of the things that hit me the most was that it’s not really that different here. The people that we’re meeting, it really helps to dispel many of the prejudices or stereotypes or ideas we all might have from mainstream media. So, I think this program is important.”