Necessity is the mother of invention.
— Plato
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
For all of us, 2020 was an especially challenging year during which resilience, innovation, and strategic planning were truly put to the test. Like so many schools affected by the pandemic, INTERLINK was faced with transforming in-person classes quickly to serve students online.
One silver lining has been the alacrity with which INTERLINK’s staff, teachers, and students have adjusted to this new reality. We have adopted and adapted technology to enable interactive online learning; reconfigured our learner-centered curriculum for students to achieve equivalent learning outcomes in the absence of in-person immersion experience; and managed, with exceptional speed, to consolidate operations spread across the US into a single online program, something unimaginable until now.
We expect the combination of a COVID vaccine and a new national administration to make the resumption of in-person study a possibility again in 2021. We look forward to it. Nonetheless, we plan to continue offering both in person and online study as regular options as soon as circumstances allow. This means that students who want the in-person experience, but cannot come for a lengthy period can complete basic and intermediate classes at home and spend, perhaps, just a single semester here, polishing their academic skills and adjusting to cultural expectations on their chosen campus.
The challenging process of going fully online in 2020 has given us a boost of energy that will be important sustenance as we gear up for better days in the coming year. As always, your support is an equally significant part of that sustenance.
In hopes for your continued safety and many opportunities to celebrate mutual success in the months ahead, I wish you a very joyous and fulfilling 2021.
Sincerely,
Ahad Shahbaz
President & CEO