By James Ito-Adler, Program Officer, LASPAU
There is ample reason for pessimism about international exchange to reign among American universities: severe financial setbacks in state budgets for public universities, a depressed stock market eroding the value of private school endowments, and a new and untested homeland security system. But among the U.S. participants at the 2003 Annual Conference of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), held in Rio de Janeiro in March, there remains a bedrock understanding of the value of international exchanges coupled with awareness of a rapidly growing interest on the part of other countries in hosting exchange students as well as sending students abroad.
The AIEA is composed of institutions involved in international education exchanges. Nearly 200 institutions from over 40 U.S. states and 20 countries sent representatives to this year’s conference—in most cases the senior officer responsible for international exchanges.
To defend the value of international exchange to the readership of LASPAU’s Informativo would be the epitome of “preaching to the choir.” But it never hurts to sample the word on the street. Attitudes on display at the conference ranged from the pragmatic cultivation of foreign students as a source of revenue in lean times to an interest in international exchange as an investment in core institutional values.
There were also invaluable opportunities for participants to share experiences, make new contacts, and address common problems. LASPAU, for example, worked with Mid-America Universities International (MAUI) to organize a luncheon that brought together the executive directors of Fulbright Commissions in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile with senior representatives of a group of U.S. universities that are deeply committed to international exchange.
John K. Hudzik, dean of international studies and programs at Michigan State University and the outgoing president of the AIEA, succinctly defined the progression of perspectives on exchanges in an orientation for new members: “First, international; then, comparative; and finally, global.” To add a gloss on his message: first, international—to get beyond your local arena; then, comparative—to try to understand the similarities and differences you encounter; finally, global—to recognize and act on the knowledge that our relationships are multilateral and closely intertwined.
If there was one message from the conference that needs to be stressed, it is the global perspective. Academic exchange is not a static process, and the global phase is beginning to gather force. In addition to the United States, countries represented at the AIEA conference included Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Some of the countries represented were primarily interested in increasing the numbers of their students able to study in the United States. Others were aggressively expanding their outreach efforts and, particularly among Anglophone countries, marketing their universities as alternate destinations. European countries were also competing with the United States as a destination for Latin American students. And, in a most exciting development, some of the leading universities in Latin America were positioning themselves as destinations both for U.S. and European partners interested in exchange and for fellow Latin Americans.
LASPAU is already noticing the impact of these changes in our traditional programs, where candidates are being presented with a wider variety of options. Grantees of the Graduate Scholarships Program of the Organization of American States (OAS), for example, are able to consider all of the OAS member countries other than their own as possible destinations for their exchange programs.
Looming over all these developments is the uncertainty following the reorganization of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service into the Department of Homeland Security and the impact of the new SEVIS program for international student visas. The participants all agreed that this is the great unknown as far as American universities, U.S.-based grant programs, and cooperating agencies such as LASPAU are concerned. Our optimism and faith in the value of international exchange will surely be put to the test as we work within these new constraints.
Academic exchanges provide a means to enhance understanding of diverse cultures and to address world problems through international scholarship. The AIEA conference participants agreed that in times of peril, we need to defend the value of exchanges as we prepare to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
James Ito-Adler served as LASPAU’s representative at the 2003 AIEA conference.
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