Knowing Who We Are

Editor's note: This article was originally published in the Winter 2002 issue of International Educator. In celebration of NAFSA's 75th anniversary, IE is taking a look back at the topics and moments that have defined the field since the magazine began publication 33 years ago.

Were it not for the events of September 11, we could be preoccupied with the economy. In mid-November, it became apparent that the U.S. economy entered into recession in March 2001. In fact, the economy had been in trouble for at least a year-before we all became concerned about "hanging chads" and the ballot-counting abilities of Florida election clerks during the 2000 presidential election. Our interconnected global society very quickly turns America's economic problems into everybody's financial crisis. That was the most ominous specter stalking international education last August. 

The terrorist attack on America on September 11 hasn't changed this economic reality, but it has shifted the focus of our concerns. We now live under changed circumstances — on our campuses, in our communities, and throughout the globe. This new reality entails a declared war on terrorism, American-led military activity in Afghanistan, and a variety of conflicting calls from our leaders. Some advise us to circle the wagons around "Fortress America," while others encourage us to carry on with business as usual.

President Bush has rightly urged that we return to our normal lives and regular routines. Americans should not only resume daily routines, but should also open our minds and thoughts…The need for increased international understanding, for greater tolerance of other cultures and beliefs, for enhanced familiarity with other peoples whom may initially seem uncomfortably foreign has been clearly underscored by the tragedy of September 11. It has never been more important for Americans to resolve to unlock their minds and to open up to the world. And international educators must assume a leadership role in this national effort.

In an attempt to explain the importance of knowing about the world 65 years ago, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be closed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible." All well and good, but it is important to recall the rest of the quotation. Gandhi followed his encouragement of openness by saying, "But I refuse to be blown off my feet by that." The Mahatma's advice is clear. Just as it is important that we know about other peoples and other cultures, we must know who we are. And for those of us who are educators, we share the responsibility of spreading these understandings. 

A contemporary look at the complexities of all this is presented by Thomas Friedman. His book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, is an excellent explanation of the tension between globalization on the one hand and the ancient forces of local culture, geography, tradition, and community on the other. It provides interesting insights into today's situation. Right now is the time for colleges and universities to rediscover Gandhi, to read Friedman, Seymour Hersh, and other thoughtful contemporary observers, and to do what international educators do best—unlock minds and open, carefully but ever wider, those windows of international understanding.

What Needs to be Understood 

A major point to understand is that the events of September 11 are in large measure the direct consequences of America's own failures in foreign relations. Osama bin Laden and his followers have been furious at the United States for desecrating the "Land of the Two Mosques," Saudi Arabia, by its military presence. The United States has maintained troops in Saudi Arabia since the Gulf War a decade ago. Their presence has been justified by a need to "defend the gas station"—to protect its Saudi Arabian oil supply. Middle East scholars have warned us that a prolonged U.S. military presence in the Gulf would result in constant and deepening social abrasion within the countries in that region. Many Americans have not clearly understood this message because they do not know very much about life in Saudi Arabia or about its people or its rulers.

One of the more surprising reactions to the events of September 11 has been the widespread sense in the United States that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon came as a complete surprise. While it is true that, with the exception of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1996 and frequent but individual acts of murder and mayhem by various deranged individuals, Americans have had little experience with terrorism within our own borders, in the global sense we have not been isolated from it. During the past decade, the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the 1996 car bombing of Khobar Towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, bin Ladin's 1998 directive to his followers to, "kill all Americans and their allies" followed by the destruction of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and the attempted sinking of the ­­­U.S.S. Cole in 2000 are clear evidence that somebody out there is unhappy with the United States and intends to do us harm. The exceptional and extraordinary characteristics of the events of September 11 are that they took place within the borders of this country. 

Countries in every other region of the world have been living with terrorism for a long time. When I lived in Europe in the 1970s, the Bader-Meinhof gang in Germany and the Red Guards in Italy were notorious for kidnappings and killings. Aircraft were hijacked and sometimes exploded, automobiles were commandeered, and business people hired bodyguards and carried elaborate protection devices. Since the end of World War II, the use of terrorism as a threat and a weapon to achieve individual ends has spread around Europe and to Latin America, to Asia, and to Africa in a variety of guises. September 11 brought reality to the United States—terrorism exists throughout the world and poses a threat to everyone in it. No longer can the United States' location between two vast oceans with friendly neighbors to the north and to the south assure protection and security.

What Lies Ahead 

The future is bright, but there are some gloomy realities with which to contend. One reality is that the United States can live with terrorism and learn from other countries in the world that have been dealing with terrorism for a long time. The British, Israelis, Colombians, and others can show the United States how to become more vigilant as a people. There are lots of threats, and Americans need to learn how to live with them and to continue to lead a world in which terrorism is a reality.

A second reality is that the terrorist threat will not go away quickly. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Professor Walter McDougall of the University of Pennsylvania has begun to write about a phenomenon he calls “Cold War II.” He recalls 1947 when President Truman scared the hell out of the American people by insisting that this nation and, indeed, every nation in the world had to choose between freedom based on majority rule and human rights or tyranny imposed through terror and oppression. In Truman's day, the enemy was communism; today, it is terrorism. If McDougall is correct, the newly begun struggle against terrorism will characterize America's foreign policy efforts for the next several decades as communism preoccupied it for the 40 years prior to the 1990s. 

In early November, I heard James Carville, an experienced political adviser, summarize present conditions. He said that America has a problem and a situation. The problem is Osama bin Laden; the situation is terrorism. The problem is like a mosquito, which can be smoked out, hunted down, and destroyed; the situation is like the swamp that breeds mosquitoes. It will need to be drained. Both actions are possible, but the one will require significantly less time (and effort and energy and resources) than the other. The point is that we need to be prepared to be on alert and prosecuting the war on terrorism for a very long time.

International Education's Role

Where does this leave international education? What role do administrators and educators on college and university campuses throughout this country and, indeed throughout the world play in the future? There is much that can be done, and there will be more support than ever before. This is the beginning of a new era.

Some 44 years ago, an analogous scene was unfolding, when in October 1957, the United States experienced a sudden awakening. That fall, the Russians successfully launched a small satellite into orbit. As Sputnik circles the world, beaming back radio signals indicating the Soviet Union’s superior achievement in rocketry and space technology, Americans realized that a new era had dawned. The United States was behind, and therefore, threatened. If the enemy, which possessed nuclear weapons, was capable of orbiting an artificial satellite, it would not be long before the enemy could devise methods of delivering weapons of mass destruction to population centers in the United States.

America’s reaction to Sputnik was massive and swift. Congress allocated huge amounts of money in support of programs that would train Americans in mathematics, science, engineering, and technology. The National Defense Act touched the lives of American schoolchildren and college and university students throughout the generation following 1957. Within 12 years, the United States had achieved superiority over the Soviet Unio in rocket technology and had demonstrated its accomplishments in the successful Apollo flight to the moon.

A similar response to the events of September 11 has already begun. Today in Washington, D.C., massive amounts of money are being allocated to fight the war on terrorism. U.S. education has a role to play in this effort. Research of all kinds needs federal support, with the products of…contributing to a growing knowledge-base that will be used to combat today’s enemy.

Beyond those immediate goals however, there is a clearly demonstrated need to accomplish early in the twenty-first century the goals that Sen. Fulbright articulated in the middle of the twentieth century. He believed that the best way to achieve world peace was through international understanding. HE thought that if the peoples of the world, particularly its educational leaders, could have the opportunity to learn more about each other by living and learning together in each other’s countries, there would be less likelihood that they would want to kill one another. The international exchange of scholars program that bears Fulbright's name continues today with this goal in mind. So do other exchanges, many of which are sponsored and supported by the efforts of individual colleges and universities. It is my hope that a sizeable amount of newly available federal funding can be used to develop and expand not only the Fulbright program but also the NSEP and the Gilman programs, both of which fund Americans going abroad. Money also needs to be made available for the support of the study of foreign languages and to strengthen programs that bring international students to live and learn in this country.

Many of the mechanisms needed to employ additional resources effectively to the task at hand are already in place. For example, there is the National Foreign Language Institute, which has, since its establishment in the 1980s, worked to combat the wrong-headed notion that English will become the universal language any time in the foreseeable future. The sooner Americans can get over the idea that the best way to communicate with someone from another country is to shout loudly and slowly in English and instead apply themselves to the task of learning other people's languages the way we have encouraged them to learn ours, the more quickly we will take a major step toward being participants in efforts to achieve international understanding.

In the early 1990s, Sen. David Boren (now president of the University of Oklahoma) established the National Security Education Program (NSEP). His intent was to divert $150 million from a congressional allocation to the Pentagon earmarked for funding CIA operations and use it to establish a trust fund, the income from which would support undergraduate and graduate study by U.S. students in countries of the world that are critical to our national security. NSEP grants have gone to thousands of students during the past several years whose training and enlightenment abroad has only just begun to feed back into the U.S. understanding of the world. NSEP recipients are obligated to a period of government service after their education is completed. America needs more of these individuals going to more critical places, studying more of the languages Americans presently don't speak and understand, and learning as much as they can about the beliefs and attitudes of other people in order to return to this country and help find ways to deal effectively with others in the world.

Last year Congress passed a modest piece of legislation familiarly called the "Gilman Bill." The bill provided $1.5 million dollars in $5,000 increments to support undergraduate study abroad by American students anywhere in the world. Gilman scholars must be recipients of Pell grants, which means there is a fairly strict needs requirement for them to satisfy. 

Fulbright, NSEP, Gilman, and the National Foreign Language Institute the tools are already in place. The United States just needs to use them correctly.

Challenges 

On the other side of the ledger, much attention has been recently paid to the alleged "problem" of foreign students in the United States. Student visas (the Fs and the Js) constitute about 2 percent of the visas the U.S. government issues each year. In her effort to declare a temporary moratorium on the issuance of student visas while creating an effective tracking mechanism for international students, Sen. Diane Feinstein was simply wrong-headed and misguided. Although she has backed away from that attempt—largely under pressure from a number of organizations that understand how these things work far better than she—that kind of danger still exists. The United States has already, through the imminent implementation of SEVIS (formerly called CIPRIS), created a system for monitoring recipients of student and exchange visitor visas within its borders. One of the only concerns with this program for the international education community is to be sure that SEVIS is funded by the federal government, not through some awkward system that would require host institutions or the students to pay for it.

International students and scholars who spend time in U.S colleges and universities should leave the country with a good idea of who Americans are and for what Americans stand. As Fulbright desired, visitors achieve an understanding of host cultures, which will be essential in support of internationally cooperative efforts in the future. The higher education community has an opportunity to encourage the U.S. government to invest in ideas, programs, and efforts that will bring together research organizations and educational institutions to work collectively toward an increased ability to understand other people and to live peacefully in the world with them. In an age when the world is inextricably joined through global communications and a global economy, educators must do their part—which it has not done up to this point—to ensure that Americans feel comfortable functioning as equals (not as superiors) on the global stage. At the same time, educators need to be vigilant against excesses. There is a proposal in Congress at the present time that calls for an INS (or FBI) background security check on every applicant for a U.S. visa. Last year, 20 million people around the world received visas to come to the United States. One wonders how the proponents of the background check idea think such a system could possibly be implemented.

Twenty years ago, in The Arrogance of Power, Fulbright wrote about America's increasing failure to have a long-term, positive impact on the world. Unfortunately, today, some American study abroad students are exhibiting an arrogance of ignorance. Without language facility, without adequate preparation in dealing with cultural differences, without minds that are sufficiently open to appreciate other approaches to common problems, American undergraduates don't always make the best possible impression overseas. They are too close-minded, too unreceptive or unappreciative of the cultures in which they are temporarily Iiving.

Every semester and every year U.S. institutions send students out hoping study abroad will open their eyes to the world, to different perspectives on their own country and on themselves. Every year those institutions welcome these students back to campus and slot them back into the same kinds of classes, residential experiences, and pedagogical practices that were in place before they left. In other words, these students are treated as if the changes and the insights we hoped they would experience did not take place. U.S. higher education has an obligation to its students to do better than that. The good news is that this can be fixed through better preparation at home, more careful orientation abroad, and a different attitude toward the study abroad experience on the part of the home institution. Students need to understand that interna­tional education is a vital and integral part of their U.S. degree programs. Home-school faculty and administrators have an obligation to make clear the learning expectations of students who go overseas and to assess and evaluate that learning when the students return. Colleges and universities in the United States must become places where the experiences of returned study abroad students take advantage of their new learning and insights. Campus-based educational experiences for students who come back from study abroad should be markedly different from those provided to students who have not yet had this watershed learning opportunity.

Creating Change 

During the last several years, those of us who work in education abroad have been engaged in an effort to assure that study abroad programs meet some new and more rigorous standards of health and safety. Since September 11 , we have worked to expand these standards to considerations of security and intend to publish a list of good security practices soon. A new organization, the Forum on Education Abroad, is being formed to look carefully at questions of academic quality and rigor, among other things. These developments will help prepare international education programs in this country today for the new challenges, the new realities, and the new responsibilities that they must undertake in order to serve the citizens of the future. We are not going to do this by circling the wagons around “Fortress America.” We are not going to do this by hunkering down in front of our TV monitors to experience other cultures on the World Wide Web. Technology cannot replace face-to-face interaction.

International educators today are on the threshold of a time of great challenge, enormous complexity, and new paradigms. We have a responsibility to help prepare today's students to embark on the roads that lie before them with the precision tools of language, insight, and contextual knowledge so that they can walk forward on firm footing and with unlocked minds. Educators need to equip them sufficiently so that they will not be blown off their feet by the threats, the risks, and the realities that they will inevitably encounter.

David C. Larsen, Ph.D., is vice president and director of the Center for Education Abroad at Arcadia University. This article was adapted from a presentation originally made at the PaCIE Conference, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on November 28, 2001.