An environmental studies,
semester abroad program
of Southern Nazarene University (USA),
located in San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica

It was my delight recently to visit the Quetzal Education Research Center in San Gerardo de Dota, Costa Rica. What a jewel!

As a Bethany Nazarene College faculty member in the early 1980s, I remember listening to fellow colleague Dr. Leo Finkbinder talk about the BNC environmental studies center in Costa Rica. Dr. Finkbinder was a long term Bethany Nazarene College, now Southern Nazarene University, biology faculty member and founder of the Quetzal Education Research Center.

Southern Nazarene University president, Dr. Loren Gresham and, Dr. Mary Jones, Southern Nazarene University provost, encourage me to visit the site when I told them I would be in Costa Rica in November for the 2010 graduation ceremony and 40th Anniversary celebration activities for The Seminary of the Americas in San Jose, Costa Rica. I am glad I accepted their invitation.

Quetzal Education Research Center serves as a semester abroad study program in environmental science. The program is operated by Southern Nazarene University. SNU graduate Michael B. Guillot serves as the full-time field station manager and program conductor. In addition to SNU students, there are students from other Nazarene colleges and universities as well as faculty and students from other private and public universities who participate in the programs at QERC. I was fascinated with the environmental research going on at the center.

Click here to find out more about research and study opportunities offered through the Quetzal Education Research Center.

Did I tell you that the Quetzal Education Research Center is located in the “tropical cloud forest” in the interior of Costa Rica?

LeBron Fairbanks
November 29, 2010