North Park University (NPU) has awarded its highest service award to Södra Vätterbygdens Folhögskola (SVF), the Swedish school with which it has a 50-year student-exchange relationship.
At its May commencement ceremony, NPU presented SVF with its Nyvall Medallion for Outstanding Service, which recognizes individuals and institutions who have served NPU’s campus with exceptional distinction and is named after North Park’s founding president, David Nyvall.
“While other schools have relationships with universities worldwide, the NPU-SVF union is built on a lasting agreement to establish long-term relationships between our students,” said Professor of Theatre Chad Eric Bergman, who helps coordinate the NPU-SVF partnership. “One of NPU’s core personality traits is hospitality, one it shares with SVF. In that way, our schools are naturally great friends.”
To underscore the bond between the schools, a group of North Parkers traveled to Sweden last May for a reunion trip. The group, comprising program alumni and their families, spent 12 days traveling across Denmark and Sweden, with a three-day stop in Jönköping, the hometown of SVF.
The North Park-SVF College Line Exchange Program is the longest continuous international exchange program between the United States and Sweden. At the commencement ceremony, the Nyvall award was presented by Bergman to Saga Olsson, a graduating senior and Swedish national who came to North Park as an SVF exchange student.
Bergman said one of the program’s goals moving forward is to make it affordable for every student.
“There’s an energy about SVF and NPU that’s exciting,” Bergman said. “I’m looking forward to the next 50 years.”