In August 2010, a 1991 graduate of EMU, Glen D. Lapp, was among a group of 10 unarmed volunteers with International Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, who were shot and killed while returning from providing health care in a remote region. "As with many of our alumni around the world, Glen was fulfilling EMU's mission of serving and leading in a global context, which often involves great personal sacrifice," said then university president, Loren Swartzendruber. Suraya Sadeed – an Afghan-American graduate of EMU's MA degree in conflict transformation and the founder and executive director of Help the Afghan Children – told a newspaper reporter that such murders would not deter her and others from continuing to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.