I am feeling especially sentimental and indebted today to those initial groups of students-- students who I helped learn a little bit about accounting and who, just as importantly, helped me to learn more than a little bit of Spanish. So rewarding were those years when I taught at EAFIT, it is no wonder that in the process I fell in love with Colombia, with Medellin,and especially with the students, the administration and everyone connected to EAFIT!
Little did I dream, at 7 o'clock in the morning that first day of classes back in August, 1960, that it would be the start of something so wonderful and beyond anyone's imagination, the start of something which 55 years later would be one of the premier universities in Colombia, if not in all of the Americas!
In my experience, there is nothing comparable to what the people of Medellin have done in creating this "Universidad EAFIT", starting with nothing but an idea, and in a short five and a half decades, managing to have built such a first class institution, an institution which began one August day with 58 students and is today educating some 9,000 students who are able to learn and specialize in so many different fields!
I salute EAFIT's Board of Directors, the Rector Juan Luis Mejia Arango, its faculty and all of its executive staff! You, the present-day students as well as those hundreds and hundreds of alumni, have much to be proud of and grateful for-- as do I, reflecting back to that experience and realizing 55 years later that it represents the most important, and lasting professional and personal experience of my entire life. My everlasting thanks to all of you! Viva Colombia! Viva Medellín!
Bernie Hargadon. Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.