Download NAFSA: The First 10 Years

Past As Prologue
Past a s P r o lo g u e
T
NAFSA:
The First 10 Years
hree years after the end of World War II, international
education as it was previously known was experiencing significant changes
in the United states and other countries as educational institutions, governments, nonprofit and private-sector organizations adjusted to the realities of
the post-war world. shifting global political, economic, and military alliances
in the 1940s and 1950s resulted in a new spirit of internationalism that was
manifested in new initiatives in the worldwide education movement.
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National Association
of Foreign Student
Advisers (NAFSA)
is formed
First Ford Foundation
grant to NAFSA
First NAFSA
Newsletter
First NAFSA staff
member hired
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1948
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First participants in U.S. Fulbright
program go abroad.
U.S. Congress passes U.S. Education
and Educational Exchange Act
(Smith-Mundt Act)
Marshall Plan is enacted in U.S.
International Association for Exchange
of Students for Technical Experience
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is founded.
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People’s Republic of China
established
American Friends of the
Middle East established the
first grant for travel abroad
through NAFSA
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The National Association of
Foreign Student Advisers
One of the most significant developments occurred in May 1948 at a
Conference on International Student Exchange, held at the University
of Michigan. Attendees came from colleges and universities across the
United States, from Peru, India, and Canada, and from government
and independent agencies interested in international education.
Building on efforts initiated as far back as 1903 to create a national
organization on behalf of foreign students, and in response to concerns
during the war about foreign students stranded in the United States,
academic institutions, government agencies, and private organizations
combined at the Michigan conference to form the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA). Its mission was to promote
the professional development of U.S. college and university officials
responsible for assisting and advising the 25,000 foreign students who
had come to study in the United States following the war.
NAFSA’s first officers were President Clarence Linton, then
foreign student adviser at Teachers College, Columbia University;
Vice President Allen Blaisdell, director of the Berkeley International
House; Secretary Harry H. Pierson, with the Division of Cultural
Relations at the State Department; and Treasurer Joe Neal, director
of international programs at the University of Texas-Austin.
As Pierson recalled 40 years later: “Our first office was a card
table in Clarence Linton’s living room.” The initial NAFSA budget
called for an income of $9,570 to come from membership dues.
The Institute for International Education (IIE), one of the oldest
(founded in 1919) existing organizations in the field, offered free
rent, light and office equipment. The Carnegie Foundation gave
NAFSA $12,900 to help it get started.
When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949,
leaving most of the 3,800 Chinese students in the United States
without funds and facing a questionable future, NAFSA was called
NAFSA Celebrates 10
Years of “Exchange of
Persons,” in Ann
Arbor, Michigan
NAFSA opens office on
New York University’s
Washington Square
campus
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U.S. Congress passes
National Defense
Education Act
English Language
Section organized
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1959
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Agricultural Trade
Development and
Assistance Act
Launch of Sputnik by
the Soviet Union
U.S. Commissioner of Education
designates Hindi-Urdi as a critical
language to be taught and
learned, with Chinese, Japanese,
Arabic, Portugese and Russian.
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Past As Prologue
Past a s P r o lo g u e
upon to help resolve the crisis. The fledgling organization enhanced its identity with university
administrators and high-level government officials
by the role it played in raising financial aid and its
demonstration that it could be counted on to act in an emergency.
Subsequently, the association established special committees to
deal with other international situations that caused emergencies
among foreign student constituencies.
They included the financial crisis facing Iranian students in the
early 1950s because of changes in regulations governing currency
transfers and the influx of Hungarian students to the United States
following the 1956 uprising in their country.
Meanwhile, to handle the increasing burdens of a growing organization, NAFSA strengthened itself internally. In 1951 it received
the first of three grants from the Ford Foundation to help fund its
operations. In 1952 it hired Linda Vogel, former foreign student
adviser at Stanford University, as its only paid executive, with the
title of administrative assistant to the secretary. Also in 1952, the
American Friends of the Middle East established the first grant for
travel abroad to be made available through NAFSA. In 1954 the
association opened a separate office on the Washington Square
campus of New York University.
InternatIonal educator J A N.+ F E B .08
Fulbright, Marshall, IAESTE, and More
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As NAFSA planted its roots, other events were setting the stage for
the growth of the international education movement in the years and
decades ahead. In 1946, the Fulbright Act, authored by Sen. J. William
Fulbright of Arkansas, had mandated a peacetime international educational exchange program. Congress strengthened the Fulbright Act
in 1948 when it passed the U.S. Education and Educational Exchange
Act, referred to as the Smith-Mundt Act, which attempted to connect
American foreign policy with educational and cultural exchange.
In the same year, the International Association for the Exchange
of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) was founded in London with representatives from ten European Countries. American
involvement began with participation by MIT.
Also in 1948, the first participants in the Fulbright Program went
overseas. “The Fulbright program ushered in an era of international
education exchange that ultimately extended far beyond those who
were chosen to learn or teach under U.S. government sponsorship,” said
William W. Hoffa. “Because it involved graduate students and faculty,
its impact on individuals influenced campus thinking about the rest of
the world and lent support to international education endeavors.”
Hoffa wrote about the Fulbright program and other developments of the period in A History of US Study Abroad: Beginnings to
1965, a special publication of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad and The Forum on Education Abroad.
Other postwar legislation that boosted international education
included the Marshall Plan, enacted in 1948 to provide emergency assistance to stabilize Europe. It ended in 1951 but a wide range of other
federal initiatives followed, including several linked to international
education. Hoffa cited as an example the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, which allowed other countries to
finance purchases of U.S. agricultural surpluses in return for allowing
foreign currency in U.S. possession to be used to support educational
exchange, American studies abroad, libraries and community centers,
and the translation, publication and distribution of books abroad.
By 1956 the International Educational Exchange Service in the
State Department alone involved an annual interchange of about
6,000 people between the U.S. and more than 70 other countries.
Geopolitics Spurs National Actions
While the global geopolitical climate after World War II mandated
a need for international experts in many fields, there was a short
supply of individuals trained in less commonly taught foreign languages. This spurred federal funding in the U.S. to build foreign
language and area studies programs at U.S. universities through
Title VI, “Language Development,” of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which Congress passed in August 1958 and
President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law the next month.
The legislation followed the launch of Sputnik, a small satellite,
by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. The NDEA made clear that
the U.S. government understood that meeting the Soviet aerospace
challenge required a major investment in U.S. education at all levels,
including language study.
Before passage of the act, according to an official in the U.S. Department of Education’s International Education Programs Service,
few of the languages spoken by more than three-fourths of the world’s
population were being offered in the United States and not enough
scholars were available to perform research in those languages or to
teach them. For example, although India was the world’s largest democracy and leader of the Nonaligned Movement of approximately
120 countries, only 23 students in the United States were studying
Hindi in 1958, according to the U.S. education official.
In 1959 the Commissioner of Education, on the basis of a report
prepared by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS),
designated Hindi-Urdu as one of six critical languages requiring
primary emphasis. The others were Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Portugese and Russian.
As the decade ended, 171 students were studying the six priority
languages on fellowships and 20 research projects were funded to
study how to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages
in American schools.
Meanwhile, 600 NAFSA members assembled in New York in
1959 for the association’s annual conference, with session topics
including social adjustments and academic counseling of foreign
students. The NAFSA Board urged leaders of industry to offer more
trainee jobs to foreign students, making the argument that benefits
would accrue to the United States in many different ways.
IE
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent journalist in Bethesda,
Maryland.
Past As Prologue
Pa st a s p ro lo gu e
1960-1969: From Kennedy’s
Inspirations to Fiscal Realities
By Alan Dessoff
he election of Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy
as President in November 1960 launched a decade of intensive involvement
by the United States in international relations that included significant moves
that fostered the development of international education.
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NAFSA begins
Field Service
program.
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International Educator m a r . + a p r . 08
1960
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U
.S. President
John F.
Kennedy is
elected.
U
.S. Peace Corps is
established and
first volunteers go to
Ghana and Tanzania.
(Stamp released in 1966.)
U
.S. Congress passes
Fulbright-Hays Act.
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P
resident Kennedy
assassinated;
Lyndon B. Johnson
becomes President.
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One of them was creation of the Peace Corps,
which Kennedy proposed in the fall during a campaign stop at the University of Michigan and, after
his election, authorized by executive order. Congress
approved the Peace Corps as a permanent agency
within the State Department in 1961 with stated goals
that included promoting better understanding “of
Americans on the part of people served and of other
people on the part of Americans.” On September 22,
1961, the first group of Peace Corps volunteers left
the United States for Ghana and Tanzania.
“There was a tremendous push by the Kennedy
administration for the Peace Corps. It dominated the
Kennedy years,” said Joe W. Neal, who was NAFSA’s
president in 1961–1962 and recalled attending “a lot
of meetings in Washington where they talked about
it. There was a lot of gung ho over it.”
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“The Peace Corps was a terrific idea at the right
time that has stood the test of time. It created a whole
cadre of many people who have contributed in different ways to advance international education,” added
Jon Booth, executive director of Syracuse University
Abroad. His own career in international education
began as a Peace Corps volunteer in India in the late
1960s and included numerous leadership positions
later with NAFSA.
Editor’s Note
In honor of
NAFSA’s sixtieth
anniversary year,
each issue of
IE in 2008 will
cover one decade
of the history of
international
education and
NAFSA’s role
in advancing
the field.
Jim Davis Leads Exchange Effort
Following his election but before his swearing-in,
Kennedy was moving to further explore international education opportunities. Jim Davis, NAFSA’s
president at the time, later recounted a phone call
he received in the fall of 1960 from one of Kennedy’s
key advisors, Theodore Sorensen: “Senator Kennedy
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NAFSA changes name to
National Association for
Foreign Student Affairs.
Resolution to
encourage greater
participation of
foreign students is
tabled at NAFSA
conference.
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1969
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U
.S. Congress
passes
International
Education Act.
U.S. President
Richard Nixon
is elected.
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m a r . + a p r .0 8 International Educator
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25 Past As Prologue
Past a s P r o lo g u e
wishes to set up a task force on the International Exchange of Persons. He asks if you will be willing to serve as chairman.”
Davis accepted and immediately began to fulfill “a broad assignment to explore the entire subject…and recommend needed
changes.” It all had to be completed in the seven weeks remaining
before Kennedy’s inauguration. Davis recalled that at a IIE conference shortly after in San Francisco, “I suddenly discovered that I was
being courted” by federal agencies and other organizations, all offering help and suggestions. “It was pretty heady stuff,” Davis stated.
The task force completed its work on time, with a report and
numerous recommendations that it presented to the Presidentelect. As Davis related it: “Kennedy received us cordially, smoking
his cigar….He was a speed reader and went through our report
quickly. The only change he recommended was the deletion of our
very cautious words on China. He feared this would be the one item
the press would sensationalize…Otherwise he accepted the entire
report and congratulated us on a job well done.”
Introducing Private Sector Security Overseas Seminar
for Study Abroad Administrators and Faculty
InternatIonal educator m a r .+ a p r .08
National Foreign Affairs Training Center
Arlington, Virginia
May 22-23, 2008
26
The Foreign Service Institute invites you to further develop
your skills as a study abroad program administrator/leader
through the U.S. Department of State’s acclaimed Security
Overseas Seminar. This invitation is open to any administrator/
faculty member from an academic institution covered by the
Overseas Security Advisory Council, a free government/
private sector partnership consortium. This two-day primer
offers the State Department’s expertise to enhance your study
abroad program success. You will identify security risks and
develop strategies for dealing with them in the context of your
international program needs, including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
International Personal Security Overview
Current Trends Threat Analysis
Assisting Victims of Crime Overseas
Environmental, Living, & Transportation Hazards
Leveraging Cross-Cultural Competence
Crisis Management
Services Available to American Citizens
Register now at www.osac.gov.
For more information, contact Angie Witte ([email protected])
Presented by the Foreign Service Institute and the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC).
Davis continued to work with Sorensen, who became counsel to the president, and with Sen. Fulbright’s staff in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee to implement the task force’s recommendations. That led to passage in 1961 of the Fulbright-Hays Act,
which provided the basis for expansion of government-sponsored
exchange programs.
“We did not get all we recommended but we did move ahead
significantly,” Davis declared.
Further, he said, NAFSA’s Field Service program, launched in
September 1963, “probably had its genesis” in the task force report.
Starting in 1963, a series of continuing grants to NAFSA from the
educational and cultural affairs offices of the State Department
helped NAFSA build the Field Service program as the centerpiece of
the association’s professional development and training activities.
“The Kennedy administration was very friendly to international
education because Kennedy himself supported it. I consider that
as kind of a golden era of international education,” said Josef A.
Mestenhauser, NAFSA president in 1987–1988 and later professor
emeritus at the University of Minnesota and honorary consul for
the Czech Republic in the Midwest.
Johnson Sees International Education as Integral
to National Security
When Lyndon Johnson became president in 1963 following Kennedy’s
assassination, he began a number of educational initiatives that included the International Education Act (IEA) of 1966. It was built, said
writer William W. Hoffa, on Johnson’s belief that “the nation’s security
depended in part on an awareness of other countries and cultures.”
Johnson’s plan included assisting the educational efforts of developing nations and regions, helping U.S. schools and universities
increase their knowledge of the world and its people, and advancing
the exchange of students and teachers between countries. The IEA
would provide funding to campuses and consortia to allow them
to expand international aspects of the curriculum and scholarly research. It called for training faculty members in foreign countries,
expanding foreign language courses, and creating work-study-travel
opportunities for U.S. students, as well as programs for foreign students and faculty members at universities in the United States.
As Hoffa recounted the period, Johnson also called for establishment of a National Advisory Committee on International Studies to
provide annual reports on the status of the IEA’s provisions. Representative John Brademas, a former Rhodes Scholar, future president
of New York University and staunch supporter of international educational exchange, chaired what became known as the Task Force
on International Education.
According to T.M. Vestal, cited by Hoffa as the primary historian
of the IEA, U.S. higher education leaders enthusiastically backed
the legislation. Columbia University President Grayson Kirk called
it “the best and most comprehensive program of support for international education activities that has ever been devised.” With little
debate or fanfare, Congress enacted the measure into law.
But other factors, notably growing preoccupation with the war
in Vietnam, served to block funding for the IEA and it never got
off the ground. As disappointing as that was to its supporters who
hoped for continued federal support for international education, it
nevertheless inspired further attempts to secure federal backing for
worthwhile international education initiatives. Some provisions of
the IEA reappeared later in federal education programs.
Meanwhile, organizations in the international education field
were making their own progress. IIE established offices in Asia,
Africa, and Latin America to meet growing needs for information
about U.S. higher education.
Even as it was growing, NAFSA experienced lean times financially in the late 1960s. Al Sims, vice president for international
education at the College Entrance Examination Board and NAFSA’s
president in 1967–68, reflected later on the association as it was preparing for its twentieth anniversary: “We debated cutting activities
and organization because there simply wasn’t enough of a cash flow
in prospect…We talked about the drastic possibility of increasing
the individual membership dues by almost 50 percent to twentytwo dollars!” The association settled on increases of 20 percent for
individual members and 50 percent for corporate members.
The Ford Foundation provided a two-year grant of $70,000 but
NAFSA had to match half of it with $35,000 raised from other
sources, not including membership funds. The association created
a Twentieth Anniversary Fund and, related Sims, “We learned the
hard way about the difficulties of corporate fund-raising.”
IE
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent journalist in Bethesda,
Maryland.
NAFSA: A Name Change and a Broader Scope
m a r . + a p r . 08 InternatIonal educator
NAFSA continued its own development through the decade, including a change in its name. Recognizing that their interests and
responsibilities had grown to embrace a number of other functions
in the field of international educational interchange, members
changed the organization’s name from National Association of
Foreign Student Advisers to the National Association for Foreign
Student Affairs in 1964.
NAFSA’s activities throughout the decade reflected the association’s broader scope. In his address as the new NAFSA president in
1963, Werner Warmbrunn of Stanford University called for more
emphasis on academic and intellectual themes at the annual conferences. Accordingly, the Pasadena conference in 1963 dealt with
the contributions of anthropology to understanding people from
other countries. Warmbrunn recalled later that the 1964 conference
in Minneapolis focused on the insights psychology and counseling
could provide for work with foreign students.
For several years, NAFSA conferences also focused on understanding students from particular areas of the world: from Asia
at the Chicago conference in 1966, from Latin America at the
Houston conference in 1967, and from the Middle East at the San
Francisco conference in 1968. At the 1969 conference in Boston,
Harvard Professor Edwin Reischauer received a standing ovation
when he pleaded for maintaining strong liberal arts in the U.S.
college curriculum.
In 1968, NAFSA’s governmental relationships were extended to
include the Agency for International Development.
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Past As Prologue
Pa st a s p ro lo gu e
From Cambodia to Iran / 1970-1979
by ALAN DESSOFF
ith the U nited S tates engaged in an
increasingly controversial war in Southeast Asia, and with students prominently engaged in opposition to it, the decade began
with turbulence on many fronts, including NAFSA’s 1970 conference in
Kansas City. While U.S. forces were bombing Cambodia, conference attendees at a lengthy and noisy business meeting debated whether to allow
individuals, particularly students, to participate fully in the association.
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NAFSA approves
full student
participation.
NAFSA signs
contracts for
Cooperative
Projects
Program and
start of Global
Issues Project.
International Educator M AY + J U N E .0 8
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P
resident
Nixon visits
People’s
Republic of
China (PRC).
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The year before, in Boston, a resolution to encourage greater foreign student participation had been
tabled. But the scene was far different in Kansas City,
where hundreds of foreign and U.S. students had
been brought to the conference by staff from their
institutions. To minimize expenses, they shared hotel
rooms, often with several in one room.
At the business meeting, they cheered those who
were rallying in their favor and booed those who were
not. One resolution that ultimately was approved permitted every NAFSA member, including students, to
participate fully, by voice and vote, in the association’s
affairs. Another resolution that also gained approval
charged NAFSA with developing the means for full
and effective involvement of students in all the association’s activities, including those of the regions,
sections and committees.
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Homer Higbee, NAFSA’s 1970-1971 president,
wrote a week before his death in November 1987:
“Student participation…reflected larger student concerns with the times. In my opinion, we overreacted,
but with good will and without damage, to the students or to NAFSA.”
Editor’s Note
In honor of
NAFSA’s sixtieth
anniversary year,
each issue of IE
in 2008 will
cover one decade
of the history of
international
education and
NAFSA’s role
in advancing
the field.
Opportunities in China
Meanwhile, NAFSA was looking ahead and abroad
in other ways. At its 1971 fall meeting, the board authorized Gary Lowe, then foreign student adviser at
the University of Pittsburgh, to develop a proposal he
had conceived for a NAFSA group to travel to China.
The intent was to develop initial contact with and
awareness of Chinese institutions of higher learning
in anticipation of increased potential for educational
exchange opportunities.
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IIE initiates
Hubert H. Humphrey
Fellowship Program.
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U.S. President’s
Commission
releases report
prompting
universities to
boost capacities
for international
studies.
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1979
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Iranian
students
stranded in
U.S. after
Shah is
deposed.
F
irst students
from PRC
arrive in U.S.
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M AY + J U N E .0 8 International Educator
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27 Past As Prologue
Past as p ro lo gu e
That potential received
a dramatic boost in 1972,
when President Richard Nixon became the
first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China. Soon after the first students
from the PRC arrived in the United States
in 1978, NAFSA, in affiliation with the U.S./
China Education Clearinghouse, began publishing a series of books and papers relating
to U.S.-China educational exchanges. That
began institutionalization of the NAFSAChina connection to reflect what became an
explosive growth of educational exchange
between the two countries.
International Educator M AY + J U N E . 08
Preserving Title VI
28 In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration
made the first of several attempts to reduce
funding for Title VI and ultimately phase out
the program. Its rationale, according to an article written years later by Richard D. Scarfo
of the U.S. Department of Education, was that
Title VI had succeeded in meeting the urgent
need for highly trained specialists and the
continuing need would be filled by individuals sufficiently motivated to pursue studies in
these fields without a special federal program,
with institutions assuming the full cost.
The academic community moved vigorously to counter these arguments, Scarfo
reported, and academics within the Nixon administration—most notably Henry
Kissinger and Daniel Moynihan—worked
with university presidents to convince Nixon
to change his position. Despite the administration’s attempts to eliminate it, Congress
continued to appropriate funds for Title VI.
NAFSA marked its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1973 by reorganizing its internal
committee structure, boosting student participation in the association, and signing
contracts for two major new programs. One—
the Cooperative Projects Program, funded
by the State Department—supported foreign
student enrichment programs organized by
campus and community groups. The other
contract, signed with U.S.A.I.D.’s office of International Training, was designed initially to
enhance the experience of A.I.D.-supported
foreign students. It came to full fruition later
in NAFSA’s Global Issues Project.
New Emphasis on Education
Abroad
NAFSA experienced “a real breakthrough”
in its federal government relationships in
1976, as recalled by Jon Booth, who worked
with the association during that period and
later became executive director of Syracuse
University Abroad. According to Booth,
John Richardson, then assistant secretary
of state for educational and cultural affairs,
decided to change the State Department’s
interpretation of funding for NAFSA so
that “in addition to funding activities that
advanced foreign student issues, NAFSA
could also advance study abroad issues.”
“That was a key move in the ‘70s,” says
Booth. “All of a sudden, the study abroad
people who had been unfunded secondclass citizens in NAFSA gained status.”Don
Nelson of Miami University, Ohio, remembered his NAFSA presidential year,
1977-1978, as a year of responding to
various reorganization plans of President
Jimmy Carter’s administration. The most
critical was the shift of agency responsibility for the State Department’s educational
and cultural exchange programs to the International Communications Agency (later
renamed USIA). Reacting to expressions of
concern from the academic community, the
White House offered assurances that it was
committed to “preserving the integrity of
academic and cultural changes.”
New Initiatives in the U.S and
Challenges in Iran
In 1978 IIE initiated the Hubert H. Humphrey
Fellowship Program as a Fulbright exchange
activity. Honoring the memory and accomplishments of the late Senator and Vice
President and funded by Congress, the oneyear, non-degree program brought mid-career
professionals in public service fields from developing countries and East Central Europe to
the United States for a year of academic study
and practical professional experience.
The decade came to a close with the
ouster of the Shah of Iran in a revolution
in that country that reverberated elsewhere,
including in the U.S. where 40,000 Iranian
students “suddenly were stranded,” relates
A. Lee Zeigler, who was teaching at Stanford University at the time and had been
NAFSA’s president in 1971–1972.
Iran had sent the students to the U.S. and
others to Europe to earn scientific and engineering degrees and gain work experience
in nuclear technologies to help Iran fulfill
the Shah’s desire for a self-sufficient Iranian
nuclear program. Before 1979, when the
Shah was deposed, Iranians constituted one
of the largest national groups in the United
States because of the influx of students, “and
suddenly it ceased,” Zeigler says.
As Cassandra A. Pyle, NAFSA’s president in 1978–1979, stated the situation
later for NAFSA’s fortieth anniversary remembrance: “…our concerns focused on
the rapidly expanding numbers of Iranian
students in the U.S. (it seemed almost as if
they were going to overwhelm the foreign
student population) and the concern for institutional placement, quality of programs,
need for English language training, the visa
check in Tehran, maintenance of legal status
in the U.S., etc.”
Meanwhile, NAFSA was dealing with
another problem with Nigeria over payment
to U.S. universities and the lack of response
from Nigerian banks.
To deal with both issues, Pyle appointed
two national coordinators—a first-time
model for NAFSA.
The decade ended with a new national
awareness of serious shortcomings in what
American students learned about the world
beyond U.S. borders. Prompted by the release in 1979 of the report of the President’s
Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies, a number of universities
as well as states reexamined their curricula
and moved to boost their capacities for international studies and research.
IE
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent
journalist in Bethesda, Maryland.
Past As Prologue
Past a s P r o lo g u e
1980–1989:
From regulatory concerns to the
emergence of a unipolar World
by ALAN DESSOFF
hortly after the 1980 election of ronald reagan
as president, his administration, principally through U.S. information
agency director charles Wick, moved to severely cut funding for federally
supported international education programs.
60°
1987
U.S. Coalition for
Advancement of
Foreign Languages
and International
Studies (CAFLIS) is
created.
1983
New INS Regulations
create heavy burden
on international
student advisers.
1980
U.S. President
Ronald Reagan
is elected.
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InternatIonal educator j u l .+ au g .08
1980
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1980
International Educational Exchange
Liaison Group is formed.
1980
Title VI of U.S. NDEA is incorporated
into Higher Education Act (HEA)
and expanded.
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1986
Association of
American Universities
proposes creation of
national foundation for
foreign language and
international studies.
1987
INS eases
regulatory
burden due, in
part, to efforts
by NAFSA
Task Force on
Regulatory
Reform.
“He dramatically cut funding. It was very bad,”
recalled A. Lee Zeigler, retired director of the Bechtel International Center at Stanford University and
NAFSA president in 1971–1972.
But a massive lobbying campaign for restoration
of the cuts was successful and Wick and his staff came
to recognize the value of the Fulbright program and
other areas of support for international education.
A need for closer linkages among educational
associations with international interests was acknowledged in 1980 with formation of the International
Educational Exchange Liaison Group, which took on
major advocacy roles for its member organizations.
NAFSA’s Works on Regulatory Issues
NAFSA was active in its own right in efforts to change
governmental regulations or resist changes. As Marvin Baron, NAFSA’s president in 1984–1985 recalled
in an essay he wrote for the association’s fortieth anniversary, demonstrations by Iranian students in the
early 1980s led some members of Congress to insist
on tighter controls on foreign students. In 1983 the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) promulgated “complex and burdensome” regulations that
“sent most foreign student advisers reeling under a
heavy new workload,” according to Baron.
Through its Government Regulations Advisory
Committee and a newly formed Task Force on Regulatory Reform, NAFSA articulated “in very clear and
concise terms necessary changes in the INS regulations,”
Baron wrote. “Members responded, institutions were
mobilized, members of Congress and their staffers were
informed, and the attention of the commissioner of INS
was gained.” After much negotiation, INS issued new
regulations in 1987 without some of the most objectionable aspects of those it proposed four year earlier.
Meanwhile, through continuing congressional
reauthorizations, Title VI of the National Defense
Education Act (NDEA) opened new avenues of federal involvement in international education.
EdItoR’S
NotE:
In honor of
NAFSA’s sixtieth
anniversary year,
each issue of
IE in 2008 will
cover one decade
of the history of
international
education and
NAFSA’s role in
advancing the
field.
1988
NAFSA celebrates 40th
year with Sen. J. William
Fulbright as speaker at
annual conference.
60°
1989
Berlin Wall
falls.
30°
•
8 5
•
8 6
8 7
•
8 8
1989
•
0°
1988
American Council for
Education proposes
expansion of international
studies initiatives.
1988
U.S. Congress creates
Centers for International
Business Education.
1989
Students
demonstrate
in Tienanmen
Square in
Beijing.
30°
j u l . + au g .0 8 InternatIonal educator
1988
U.S. President
George H.W.
Bush is elected.
•
presidentail portraits: wikimedia commons. berlin wall and tienanmen square: shutterstock
15
Past As Prologue
Past a s P r o lo g u e
InternatIonal educator j u l . + au g . 0 8
Title VI Reauthorization
16
In the 1980 reauthorization of the law, a new
section was added that provided for grants
on a matching basis for business and international education programs. According
to Richard D. Scarfo of the U.S. Department of Education, this addition reflected a
judgment that federal support for international education should address economic
productivity and international economic
competition as well as foreign policy and
national security interests.
Also as a result of the 1980 reauthorization, Title VI was incorporated into
the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965,
further emphasizing a greater focus on
the value of international studies as part
of higher education rather than solely as
support for U.S. government, military
and security needs. The HEA reauthorization language reflected the increasing
importance of international expertise to all
aspects of modern life, including business,
technology, education, media, health, and
other professional fields.
The cadre of Title VI programs was expanded accordingly to include Business and
International Education (BIE), which provided matching funds to strengthen business
education and services to U.S. firms doing
business abroad.
As Scarfo reported in an article on the
history of Title VI, its reauthorization in
1986 further expanded its authority through
a new program that called for a small number of national language resource and
training centers to improve the national capacity to teach and learn foreign languages
in an effective manner.
Another new section added in 1986 authorized summer language institutes for
advance language students and professional
development of pre-service and in-service
language teachers.
Further, the 1986 reauthorization established a program for the acquisition of and
access to periodicals and other materials
published outside the United States.
In 1988, under separate legislation, the
Centers for International Business Education (CIBEs) were created to strengthen the
international dimensions of business education and serve as regional and national
resources to the business and education
communities. The CIBE legislation was then
transferred to Title VI.
Education Associations
Examine Challenges
In 1986 the Association of American Universities drafted a legislative proposal to create
a national foundation for foreign language
and international studies. As the decade progressed, several other organizations, studies
and reports singled out international education for special emphasis. As recounted
in a 1990 article by Roch C. Smith, then
associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina,
Greensboro, they ranged from Michael I.
Sovern’s 1982–1983 presidential report from
Columbia University, American Ignorance in
a Dangerous World, to Richard D. Lambert’s
International Studies and the Undergraduate, published by the American Council on
Education (ACE) in December 1989.
A year earlier, before the 1988 presidential election, ACE’s Commission on National
Challenges in Higher Education proposed
an agenda for the next president that would
strengthen international studies and research,
encourage student and faculty exchanges,
expand the teaching and study of foreign
languages, and assist U.S. colleges and universities in developing joint educational and
research programs with foreign institutions.
In December 1987 the Coalition for the
Advancement of Foreign Languages and International Studies (CAFLIS) was created as
a forum to help shape a national agenda in the
U.S. on international education. More than 150
national disciplinary and professional associations joined CAFLIS and the Ford Foundation
provided planning support. But CAFLIS as a
movement fell apart within two years.
In August 1988 the advisory Council on
International Educational exchange stated
that “if we fail to internationalize sufficiently
our educational institutions, including expansion of student opportunities for study
and work abroad, we will irreversibly diminish the world status of the United States.”
NAFSA celebrated its fortieth year in
1988 with more than 3,000 participants in
its annual conference in Washington, where
Senator J. William Fulbright was one of the
plenary speakers.
Tiananmen, the Berlin Wall, and
a New Unipolar World
The decade came to a close in 1989 with
several major international events. The suppression in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square of a
fledgling “democracy” movement by the
People’s Liberation Army created anxiety
and anger in many of the PRC students and
scholars in the United States. They staged
protest demonstrations in front of PRC consulates and formed networks to continue the
struggle for democratic reform at home.
In response, NAFSA mobilized to help
them, sending out “China Alerts” to keep its
members informed, launching a search for
financial aid, and asking the Immigration and
Naturalization Service for work permits for
the students. After vetoing a bill that would
have granted benefits to the PRC students
and scholars in the United States, President
George H.W. Bush changed course, deferring their departure and making it easier for
them to obtain work permits.
Meanwhile, the fall of the Berlin Wall,
disintegration of the power of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War signaled
dramatic global political changes. The international political system that emerged was
unipolar, with the United States the only
remaining superpower. The beginning of
an era of globalization would impact the
rapidly emerging field of international education as well.
IE
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent
journalist in Bethesda, Maryland.
Past As Prologue
P as t as p r o l o g ue
1990–1999:
A Decade of Growth
and New Initiatives
by ALAN DESSOFF
y 1990, as the number of foreign students in the United States approached
400,000 and increasing numbers of U.S. students were studying abroad,
there were 6,400 NAFSA members on 1,800 campuses. NAFSA began
the decade with a new name, approved at its annual conference: NAFSA:
Association of International Educators. In the same year, the European
Association for International Education was founded in Amsterdam.
180°
150°
120°
90°
60°
30°
1990
NAFSA changes
name to: NAFSA:
Association of
International
Educators.
199060°
NAFSA/CIEE/
IEE task force
recommends
expansion of
study abroad
opportunities and
participation for
U.S. students.
1990
30°
International Educator S E P T. + O C T.0 8
1990
12 •
1 990
European
0°
Association for
International
Education is
founded in
Amsterdam.
1 990
President Bush
extends protection of
PRC students in U.S.
30°
1993
NAFSA
launches
International
Educator
magazine.
9 1
•
NAFSA reports
seven-fold increase
in foreign students
earning Ph.D.s in U.S.
9 2
1 991
President
Bush signs
legislation
creating
National
Security
Education
Program.
1 991
U.S. President
Bill Clinton is
elected.
•
9 3
•
9 4
1 991
U.S.
Congressional
reauthorization
of Higher
Education
Act adds two
new Title VI
programs.
0
0°
30°
In 1990 NAFSA launched a new magazine, International Educator, to raise awareness of international
education issues that were becoming more prominent. Also in 1991, the U.S. Information Agency and
the Agency for International Development offered
significant help to students from newly liberated
countries of central and Eastern Europe. Historically
black colleges in the United States held a workshop in
1991 on international education, with A.I.D. financial
support and guidance from NAFSA.
In a 1990 report, “A National Mandate for Education Abroad: Getting on with the Task,” a National
Task Force on Undergraduate Education Abroad established by NAFSA, the Council on International
Educational Exchange (CIEE) and Institute of International Education (IIE), recommended that 10
percent of all U.S. undergraduates should study
abroad. It also called for greater diversity in the stu60° participate
90° in education
120° abroad150°
dents who
programs,
in the foreign locations for the programs, and in the
types of programs.
Further, the task force said that education abroad
had to be integrated into regular degree programs
and campus-based attitudes, policies that inhibited
study abroad must be addressed, and expanded funding from both private and public sources would be
essential if the academic community was to diversify
the types of institutions, students, and experiences
involved in education abroad in the years ahead.
Editor’s
Note:
In honor of
NAFSA’s sixtieth
anniversary year,
each issue of
IE in 2008 will
cover one decade
of the history of
international
education and
NAFSA’s role in
advancing the
field.
Differing Views on Achievements
The task force set 1995 for the achievement of many
of these goals. Comments sought that year from
campus-based education abroad advisers and administrators revealed a variety of opinions on the impact,
if any, of the 1990 report. There was confusion as to
whether each campus should aim for the 10 percent
180°goal of if that was a national composite figure. There
60°
1999
NAFSA Executive Director/
CEO Marlene M. Johnson
calls for comprehensive
U.S. international
education policy.
30°
•
9 5
•
9 6
•
•
9 8
1999
•
30°
International Educator
1 999
British
Prime
Minister
0°
Tony Blair calls
for UK to recruit
50,000 more
students by
2003.
1 997
CIEE forms
Association
for Studies in
International
Education.
S E P T.+ O C T. 08
1 993
U.S. Alliance for
International
Educational and
Cultural Exchange
cites economic
benefits of
exchange
programs.
9 7
presidentail portraits: wikimedia commons
13 Past As Prologue
P as t as p r o l o g ue
were differences between what small and
large, public and private institutions were
doing with education abroad programs.
Almost all respondents commented on the
need for better national data on education
abroad activity.
Other studies and reports gave conflicting pictures of the state of international
education. A Carnegie study of academics
in the early 1990s (The Academic Profession:
An International Perspective) found that U.S.
faculty ranked very low in terms of their interest in forming international contacts and
their belief that knowledge of international
scholarship is important.
NAFSA reported in 1993 that foreign
students earning Ph.D.s in the United States
had increased sevenfold in the previous
years, to 8,000. The Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange cited
benefits from more spending on exchange
programs, including $6 billion per year that
foreign university students brought into the
U.S. economy.
International Educator S E P T. + O C T.0 8
Federal Actions
14 Meanwhile, the federal government was
moving on several fronts to expand education abroad opportunities for U.S.
students. In 1990, as the People’s Republic
of China imposed restrictions on scholars
and students who wanted to study abroad,
President George H.W. Bush extended his
executive order to protect PRC students
and scholars in the United States for four
more years.
In 1991 Bush signed the David L. Boren
National Security Education Act (NSEA),
which mandated that the Secretary of Defense create the National Security Education
Program (NSEP).
The program was established to award
scholarships to U.S. undergraduates to study
abroad in areas critical to U.S. national security; fellowships to U.S. graduate students
to study languages and world regions critical
to U.S. national security; and grants to U.S.
higher education institutions to develop
education abroad programs in and about
countries, languages, and international
fields critical to national security and underrepresented in U.S. study.
The Title VI programs continued to
expand during the 1990s to fit new international realities. Two new programs were
established through the 1992 Higher Education Act reauthorization.
One new section of the act authorized
support to operate centers that consortia of
higher education institutions had already
established abroad to promote research
and exchanges in language and area studies. Also, recognizing the value of a diverse
government workforce, the Institute for International Public Policy was created with
a goal to increase awareness of and interest
in careers in international service among
undergraduates who were members of underrepresented minority groups. But that
program was never funded.
Recognizing New Realities
As the decade progressed, U.S. students’ interest and participation in studying abroad
increased steadily, with double-digit growth
in the late 1990s, and study abroad became a
more commonplace part of the higher education experience. More foreign students
also were coming to the U.S. In 1994, while
overall enrollment in community colleges
was down, foreign student numbers were up
to an all-time high of 61,000, a six percent
increase from the previous year.
Other countries also were expanding
their involvement in international education. In a 1995 article in International
Educator, former NAFSA President A. Lee
Zeigler wrote about Cuba’s intensive efforts
to bring foreign students, particularly from
developing countries, to its shores.
In 1997, CIEE initiated an organization—
the Association for Studies in International
Education (ASIE)—that would contribute
to developing research in international
education.
As global information, economic, and
security networks continued to grow and
expand and national borders became more
porous, expanded area and language expertise was required in a variety of disciplines
and professional fields. In its reauthorization of Title VI in 1998, Congress explicitly
recognized these realities.
NAFSA Calls for Comprehensive
International Education Policy
In November 1999, in a speech delivered at
the CIEE conference in Chicago, NAFSA
Executive Director/CEO Marlene M. Johnson called for creation of a comprehensive
international education policy in the United States and said NAFSA was in the early
phases of developing it.
Johnson said past efforts to promote
such a national policy had foundered and
since 1966, “proponents of international
education programs have never succeeded
in moving our concerns high enough up on
the list of national priorities to obtain significant funding.”
She cited initiatives underway in other
countries, including a British effort to recruit an additional 50,000 students to United
Kingdom universities by 2005, a French
program to lure international students to
France, and a government/university marketing collaboration in Australia that was
strategically recruiting international students to that country.
“If international students, scholars, and
faculty enrich our colleges and universities,
and later U.S.-based firms, we need to act
to ensure that the best of them continue to
choose the United States for their education,” Johnson declared.
She called on the international education
community in the United States to “take the
lead, raise the bar, and articulate to the nation why we do what we do, and what needs
to happen to strengthen our capacity to
create the leadership capacity for a global
future.”
IE
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent
journalist in Bethesda, Maryland.
Past As Prologue
Past a s p ro lo gu e
2000–2008:
A Roller Coaster Ride
by ALAN DESSOFF
n the public and nonprofit sectors, a number of developments
boosted international education as the new millennium began.
President Bill Clinton, in his last year in office, gave
NAFSA’s strategic objective of pursuing a U.S. international education policy a big endorsement when he
signed an April 19, 2000 memorandum to the heads
of executive departments and agencies calling for
180°
such a policy.
Clinton said it was the policy of the federal government to support international education, including
a commitment to encouraging students from other
countries to study in the United States; promoting
study abroad by U.S. students; supporting the exchange
150° and scholars;
120°
90°
60°
of teachers
enhancing
international
60°
30°
International Educator N O V + D E C . 08
2000
18 2
004
U.S. has highest number
of foreign students
enrolled in colleges and
universities.
2
001
Events of 9/11
sharpen focus
on international
expertise and
prompt Congress
to boost Title VI
and FulbrightHays funding.
2
000
President Clinton
calls for U.S.
international
education policy.
•
0 1
•
30°
2
004
Foreign students make
up higher percentage of
enrollment in other G-8
countries.
0 2
•
0 3
•
0 4
2
003
0°
2
000
U.S. President
George W. Bush
is elected.
30°
U.S. government
implements
Student and
Exchange Visitor
Information
System SEVIS) to
track international
students and
scholars at
campuses in U.S.
2
004
U.S. Congress and
President form
Commission on Abraham
Lincoln Study Abroad
Fellowship Program.
2
004
American Council on
Education hosts meeting
to discuss advancing
international education
research.
2
005
Lincoln
Commission
calls for one
million U.S.
undergraduates
to study abroad
annually by 2017.
0
programs at U.S. institutions; and expanding foreign
language learning and knowledge of other cultures.
In an address on international education delivered the same day that Clinton signed his directive,
Education Secretary Richard Riley said nations across
the world were keen on fostering greater faculty and
student exchanges. He suggested a series of steps to
re-energize the cause of international education in
the United States.
Dealing with New Realities After 9/11
0°
30°
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 helped to
emphasize the importance of international expertise
for national security and mutual international understanding. On the heels of the tragedy, Congress
provided the first significant increase in Title VI and
Fulbright-Hays funding since the 1960s.
September 11 also spurred the government’s full
implementation in 2003 of the Student and Exchange
60°
90°
120°
150°
Visitor Information
System (SEVIS),
a computerized
system to track the whereabouts and academic status
of international students and scholars at campuses
across the U.S, which the Immigration and Naturalization Service had been developing in one form
or another since the mid 1990s. By February 2003,
all schools and exchange visitor programs had to be
enrolled in SEVIS and issuing SEVIS forms to new
students and exchange visitors, and by August 1,
2003, all current students and exchange visitors had
to have been entered into the SEVIS database.
Under SEVIS, schools and program sponsors
transmit information electronically to the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State
throughout a student’s or exchange visitor’s stay in
the U.S. DHS reports that “As of June 30, 2008 there
were 1,052,694 Active nonimmigrant students, exchange visitors, and their dependents in SEVIS. Data
on greater than 5.6 million nonimmigrant visa-type
F, M, J visa holders and their dependents, schools and
180°EV programs can be found in SEVIS.
2
006
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
co-host summit of university presidents on
international education.
Rice
60°
0 5
Note:
In honor of
NAFSA’s sixtieth
anniversary year,
each issue of IE
in 2008 covers
one decade of
the history of
international
education and
NAFSA’s role in
advancing
the field.
2
007
U.S. House passes
Paul Simon Study
Abroad Act.
Spellings
2
006
President Bush launches
initiative to boost number
of Americans learning
critical foreign languages.
•
Editor’s
•
•
•
0 8
2009
•
0°
Durbin
International Educator
2
006
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin
and Norm Coleman
introduce Abraham
Lincoln Study Abroad
Act. Similar Paul Simon
Study Abroad Act is
introduced in House.
0 7
N O V + D E C . 08
2
006
U.S. Academy for
Educational Development
hosts colloquium on
diversity in education
abroad.
0 6
30°
Coleman
30°
wikimedia commons
19 Past As Prologue
Past as p ro lo gu e
SEVIS impacted the
business practices of higher education institutions;
it required institutions to comply with
laws, procedures and government policies,
which altered the status quo of how international student offices operate. Furthermore,
SEVIS required that advisers (and immigration practitioners) be able to counsel
international students and scholars on data
contained in SEVIS that could impact their
immigration status.
Some international student advisers
disclosed that implementing and maintaining SEVIS imposed a significant financial
burden and notable workload increase on
institutions, which had to invest in software,
hardware and additional personnel to be
able to issue visa documents for international students and scholars.
Concern also rose about the impact of
SEVIS on students and scholars themselves,
who had to pay a $100 SEVIS fee in addition
to their visa application fee. For students
from developing countries, the SEVIS fee
could be one month’s or even one year’s
salary, Gang Wang, associate director of
the Office of International Students and
Scholars at Yale said. In April of 2008, the
Department of Homeland Security proposed doubling that fee to $200.
International Educator N O V + D E C .0 8
Expanding Study Abroad
20 In the middle years of the decade, Congress
took further steps to expand participation
by U.S. students in study abroad programs,
starting with creation in 2004 of a 17-member
Commission on the Abraham Lincoln Study
Abroad Fellowship Program to be appointed
by Congress and President George W. Bush.
It was charged with making recommendations to the President on expansion of study
abroad for U.S. higher education, including
funding for study abroad scholarships.
The Lincoln Commission was a vision of
Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, who identified international education as an issue of
crucial importance for the future strength
and security of the United States. In his
preface to a 2003 NAFSA task force report,
Securing America’s Future: Global Education
for a Global Age, Simon laid out his vision
that with more college students studying
abroad, the United States would be “more
understanding of the world ... creating a
base of public opinion that would encourage responsible action.”
Simon died in December 2003.
In November 2005 the bipartisan Lincoln
Commission issued its report, Global Competence and National Needs: One Million
Americans Studying Abroad. It called for
boosting the number of American undergraduates who study abroad to one million
annually by 2017, saying such a move was
critical in furthering U.S. interests globally.
It also urged the President and Congress
to make $50 million available annually beginning in 2006 to fund a Lincoln Fellowship
Program under which funds would be made
available for study abroad scholarships, primarily through colleges and universities, but
also directly to students through a national
fellowship competition.
The Commission’s report set forth several
other objectives for the fellowship program,
including increasing student diversity in
study abroad; increasing the number of students studying in nontraditional countries;
and increasing the number of study abroad
students from community colleges and institutions serving minority and low-income,
first-generation students.
In December 2005 a national poll commissioned by NAFSA showed that more that
90 percent of U.S. citizens believed it was important to prepare future generations for a
global society. NAFSA cited the poll results
three months later in a new statement calling
for a U.S. international education policy.
Important Allies for
International Education
Advancement
Other educational organizations contributed
to the development of international education during the decade. In May 2004 the
American Council on Education hosted an
invitational meeting of international education researchers in Baltimore to discuss the
possible creation of a group devoted to advancing international education research.
Similarly, the Academy for Educational
Development began directing resources in
2005 towards a new education abroad initiative. In May 2006 it hosted a colloquium on
diversity in education abroad.
According to a study comparing the
education system in the United States with
systems in other Group of Eight countries,
the United States had the highest number
of foreign students enrolled in colleges
and universities in 2004, although foreign
students made up a higher percentage of
enrollments in other countries.
The study, conducted by the National
Center for Education Statistics, found
that G-8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United
Kingdom, in addition to the United States)
hosted about two-thirds of the 2.7 million
students attending a college or university
outside their country of citizenship in 2004.
The majority (22 percent) were enrolled in
the United States, followed by the United
Kingdom (11 percent), Germany (10 percent) and France (9 percent).
However, as reported by the American
Council on Education following release of the
study in 2007, because of the large total enrollment in U.S. higher education institutions,
the U.S. had among the smallest proportions
(3 percent) of foreign student enrollment in
2004. Foreign students made up 16 percent
of the total student bodies at institutions in
the United Kingdom and 11 percent each in
Germany, France and Canada.
In 2005 Congress passed a Senate resolution designating 2006 as “The Year of Study
Abroad” and extending the life of the Lincoln Commission.
Based on the Commission’s recommendations, Senators. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a
member of the Commission, and Norm
Coleman (R-Minn.) introduced the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Act in 2006
to establish the Abraham Lincoln Study
Abroad Fellowship Program.
A different version, the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act, which
closely mirrors the Lincoln Commission recommendations, was introduced in the House
in 2007 by Representatives Tom Lantos (DCalif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). The
bill called for creation of an innovative publicprivate partnership to administer a national
study abroad program to ensure reading the
one million student goal in 10 years. Senators
Durbin and Coleman subsequently introduced a similar bill in the Senate.
Earlier in 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Education
Margaret Spellings co-hosted a “U.S. University Presidents Summit on International
Education,” with an objective to engage leaders of U.S. higher education in a renewed
partnership to strengthen international
education, emphasizing its importance to
the national interest.
At the Summit, President Bush launched
a “National Security Language Initiative” to
increase the number of Americans learning critical need foreign languages such as
Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, and Farsi.
Among other things, the president called
for adding overseas language study to 150
U.S. Fulbright student scholarships annually,
increasing support for immersion language
study centers abroad and creating new State
Department summer immersion study programs in critical need languages for up to
275 university-level students per year.
In April 2007 the Coalition for International Education, an ad hoc group of 28
national higher education organizations
including NAFSA, called on Congress to
restore sufficient funding for international
education programs including HEA-Title
VI, Fulbright-Hays, the Institute for International Public Policy, and Foreign Language
and Area Studies.
The Coalition said funding reductions in
previous years had taken a “significant toll”
on these programs. It cited a drop over the
past three years of 258 in the number of Foreign Language and Area Studies academic
year fellowships.
In June 2007 in what NAFSA called “a
historic move to support the international
education of U.S. college students,” the
House of Representatives unanimously
passed the Paul Simon Study Abroad Act.
To respond to rising public concern about
the management of education abroad, in January 2008 NAFSA released the report of its
Task Force on Institutional Management of
Study Abroad. The report, entitled Strengthening Study Abroad: Recommendations for
Effective Institutional Management, is the
work of a panel of university presidents and
provosts convened by NAFSA to “recommend core principles, values, and behaviors
for senior campus administrators to consider as they develop policies and practices to
guide the management of the study abroad
function.” The report urged campus leaders
to confront a set of “specific challenges that
virtually all institutions face,” setting out 14
criteria for the institutional management
of study abroad in four major categories:
institutional commitment; infrastructure;
resources; and clarity and accountability.
NAFSA set out policy proposals for the
next administration on foreign students,
study abroad, and exchanges in August 2008
in its report, International Education: The
Neglected Dimension of Public Diplomacy.
The report sets specific policy recommendations in the areas of attracting international
students and scholars; internationalizing U.S.
education, especially through study abroad;
and bolstering educational exchanges and
volunteer-service programs. Among the
priorities outlined in the report are: passage
and implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act; security
and immigration policies that strike a better
balance between control and openness; a
proactive approach to attracting the world’s
talented students and scholars to the United
States; and expanding support for timetested educational exchanges and the Peace
Corps. Central to the recommendations is
NAFSA’s call for robust presidential leadership in support of “a major international
education initiative designed explicitly to
foster an America that knows, understands,
and is able to communicate with the world,
and to strengthen the relationships through
which the American people and the world’s
people can relate to, interact with, and understand each other.”
IE
Center for
Study
Abroad
• Low cost programs since 1990
• Flexible arrangements
• Open to all adults from all countries
• Earn college credit in fully
accredited programs
EUROPE • ASIA
LATIN AMERICA
CONTACT PERSON:
Ms. Alima K. Virtue, Programs Director
325 Washington Ave. S #93
Kent, WA 98032 (USA)
[email protected]
tel: 206-726-1498
centerforstudyabroad.com
ALAN DESSOFF is an independent
journalist in Bethesda, Maryland.
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