The Burma-Bucknell Connection
"The long association between Burma and Bucknell ... is proof that there remain such constant values as friendship and love of learning ... despite the vicissitudes of internal politics and international relations." - Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in her commencement address to the Bucknell University Class of 1999
In 1858, Maung Shaw Loo left his home country of Burma to study at the University at Lewisburg - becoming the first Burmese person to attend college in the United States and Bucknell's first international student. Ever since then, Bucknell and the people of Burma have maintained strong bonds, even in the face of political turmoil in the country that's now called Myanmar.
Shaw Loo's legacy thrives more than a century and a half later: Students from Burma join almost every Bucknell class, and there are now more than 180 international students from all over the world studying here.
Spotlight on the Burma-Bucknell connection
- Video: "Burma and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights": "Mr. Human Rights" Jack Healey, director of the Human Rights Action Center, spoke on campus in 2008 about Burma and human rights worldwide
- Summer 2008 Bucknell Magazine: "Historic Relationship, Contemporary Challenges." Bucknell Magazine feature on the Burma-Bucknell connection and what it means today; begins on page 26
- Summer 2008 Bucknell Magazine: "A Reciprocal Relationship: The Rickard Family and Burma." A Bucknell family's longstanding connection with Burma.
- Suu Kyi's 1999 Bucknell Commencement address delivered in absentia by former U.S. Ambassador to Burma Burton Levin, while Suu Kyi was in Burma under house arrest for her efforts to establish democracy there
