Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 18, 1992 TAG: 9202180112
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
TEAM TO HELP MEET ROMANIAN UNIVERSITY'S NEED FOR TEXTBOOKS
Scott Tschetter and Mircea Ivanescu just met. But already the Virginia Tech student and the rector of a Romanian university have taken a place of importance in each other's lives.Tschetter, a materials engineering major, will be collecting books to send to Ivanescu's University of Craiova, which is in dire need of up-to-date texts.
And Ivanescu, in turn, will be helping Tschetter fulfill his dream to learn about Eastern European countries, and perhaps, to live in one.
"I've always been interested in helping those countries," said Tschetter, a senior at Tech. He looked into the Peace Corps, but they prefer people without families, and Tschetter has a wife and daughter.
"I had been asking my professors about it, and one of them said, `Why don't you call my hunting buddy,' " Tschetter said.
It was then that he met William Mashburn, a professor in mechanical engineering who has visited Romania and who was hosting Ivanescu's visit to Tech.
He was told that this small country, under a communist regime until 1989, really needed books.
Tschetter began organizing a drive almost immediately. He has all the details down now, except where to set up his collection boxes. They'll turn up soon on campus.
Ivanescu, meanwhile, visited with professors from all university curriculums.
"It is better now, in my country," he said over lunch, "but we are still behind."
Romania was cut off from the outside world in the 1970s and 1980s, Mashburn said. The engineers there made do with what they had, but with the proper training they could catch up with other countries, he said.
"They are an amazing people," Mashburn said.
Ivanescu was in Blacksburg last week to establish a link with Virginia Tech. He signed a paper saying basically that the two universities will cooperate.
His hope is for an exchange of students and professors, especially those with an interest in economics.
The professors in Romania, where there is now a free-market economy, have no experience with it, Ivanescu said. The country also needs training to help it get back to its agricultural roots.