Group of International Organizations Send Letter to President Bush to Lift Restrictions on Academic and Family Travel to Cuba

On February 25, 2008, in the wake of the first change in Cuban presidential leadership in almost 50 years, NAFSA: Association of International Educators Executive Director and CEO Marlene Johnson wrote a letter on behalf NAFSA and the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, the Latin America Working Group, the Latin American Studies Association, the National Foreign Trade Council, USA*Engage, and the Washington Office on Latin America to President Bush calling for the lifting of restrictions. Specifically, the letter calls for the lifting of restrictions the Bush administration imposed in 2003 and 2004 on academic and family travel. The letter requests that the Bush administration restore the availability of licenses for the following academic endeavors:

• Short-term study and teaching in Cuba;
• Study in Cuba under third-party programs—i.e., programs other than those of degree-granting higher education institutions;
• Study in Cuba under programs other than those of the institution in which the student is enrolled;
• Academic travel to Cuba by any bona fide professor or researcher, including, e.g., adjunct faculty;
• People-to-people exchanges unrelated to academic coursework; and
• Programs of secondary schools for study in Cuba.

Link to letter:

http://www.nafsa.org/press_releases.sec/press_releases.pg/cubaletter22508

U.S. Heritage-Seeking Students Discover Minority Communities in Western Europe

This research article examines quantitative data relevant to an increasingly multiethnic Western Europe and investigates European opportunities for U.S. minority heritage-seeking students. In addition to analyzing the demographic data of Western Europe, a review of U.S. higher education enrollment demographics derived from current national education statistics as well as a look at the racial and ethnic makeup of U.S. students studying abroad will be conducted.

Journal of Studies in International Education, Vol. 12, No. 1, 29-37 (2008)http://jsi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/29

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Passes the Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed the Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act (H.R. 1469) today, Wednesday, February 13, 2008. The bill will now go on to the full Senate for vote. The bill has strong, bipartisan leadership from Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) who introduced the Senate version of the bill. The bill was introduced in the House by Representatives Tom Lantos (D–Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R–Fla.) last year. On Monday, February 11, 2008 Representative Lantos passed away at 80 years of age.

NAFSA Task Force on Institutional Management of Study Abroad

On January 16, 2008 NAFSA released the Report of NAFSA’s Task Force on Institutional Management of Study Abroad. The report, Strengthening Study Abroad: Recommendations for Effective Institutional Management, is intended to prompt discussion and reflection at the highest levels on university and college campuses about how each institution can effectively integrate, sustain, and strengthen study abroad.

This report is endorsed by six Higher Education Associations:
· American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)
· American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
· American Council on Education (ACE)
· Association of American Universities (AAU)
· National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)
· National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC)

Task Force Members:
· John K. Hudzik (Chair), Vice President, Global Engagement and Strategic ProjectsMichigan State University

· Karen Hunter Anderson, Vice President for Adult Education and Institutional Support Illinois Community College Board

· Joseph Brockington, Associate Provost for International Programs Kalamazoo College

· Robert A. Corrigan, President San Francisco State University

· Everett Egginton, Dean, International Border Programs and NAFSA President-elect New Mexico State University

· Pamela Brooks Gann, President Claremont McKenna College

· Marlene M. Johnson, Executive Director and CEO NAFSA: Association of International Educators

· Pamela Jolicoeur, President Concordia College (Moorhead, MN)

· Kavita Pandit, Senior Vice Provost, Academic Affairs The State University of New York

· Kathleen Sideli, Associate Vice President for Overseas Study Indiana University

· Thelma B. Thompson, President University of Maryland-Eastern Shore

· Humphrey R. Tonkin, President Emeritus University of Hartford

The full report is available on the NAFSA website at: http://www.nafsa.org/knowledge_community_network.sec/international_education_4/chief_international_education/practice_resources_14/internationalizing_the/imsa_epub

Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) series on Smart Power

Continuing on the topic of Soft/Smart Power that has been an on going
discussion theme on the NAFSA Teaching, Learning & Scholarship Research/Scholarship network (www.nafsa.org/RSnetwork) I am posting a link to a video from a December 3, 2007 panel discussion which is part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) series on Smart Power. This panel consisting of World Learning President and CEO, Carol Bellamy, H. Patrick Swygert, President of Howard University, and Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, President Emeritus of George Washington University discussed the role of international education and the influence it can have on restoring the United States' standing in the world. You can link to the panel discussion here:
http://media.csis.org/csistv/?071203_smartpower.

Related to this issues is the new poll: Americans Concerned About Long-Term Impact of Damaged US Reputation Abroad from the January 28, 2008 PRNewswire-USNewswire:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-28-2008/0004744241&EDATE=

A Theory on Students Compatibility with a Host Family While Studying Abroad

Propositions of the Theory

1. The greater one’s proficiency in a foreign language (same as host family), the greater one’s compatibility with a host family. This foreign language proficiency will facilitate easier communication between the student and the host family, which in turn will increase compatibility. This is a positive, linear relationship.

2. The greater the number of prior international/intercultural travel experiences one has experienced, the greater one’s compatibility with a host family. Increased number of international/intercultural travel experiences a student has experienced will increase the compatibility with a host family because they enjoy such experiences. This is a positive, linear relationship.

3. The greater one’s age, the greater one’s level of maturity. The older a student is the more mature behaviors they will display in the host family living environment. This is a positive, linear relationship.

3. The greater one’s age, the greater their ability to adapt to an intercultural experience. Students will be able to adapt much easier to an intercultural experience the older they are. This is a positive, linear relationship.

4. The greater one’s maturity level, the greater one’s compatibility with a host family. Students who display mature behaviors will be much more compatible with a host family than students who demonstrate immature behaviors. This is a positive linear relationship.

5. The greater one’s ability to adapt to an intercultural experience, the greater one’s compatibility with a host family. The ability to adapt to an intercultural experience will have a direct impact on a student’s compatibility with the host family. This is a positive, linear relationship.

Contingency factor for proposition 5
5a. The higher one’s interest in an intercultural experience, the stronger the relationship between adaptability and compatibility.

6. The more one experiences home sickness, the less one’s compatibility with a host family. As students become more homesick they will not be as compatible with their host family because they want to be back home and not on their study abroad experience. This is a negative, linear relationship.

Contingency factor for proposition 6
6a. As the amount of contact from friends and family back home decreases, the stronger the relationship between homesickness and compatibility.

7. The length of stay of a study abroad experience is related to one’s compatibility with a host family. From a short length of stay to a moderate length of stay the relationship is positive. However, from a moderate length of stay to an extended length of stay there is no relationship. This is a curvilinear relationship.

To view a diagram of this theory follow this link: http://international.ed.consulting.googlepages.com/StudyAbroadCompatibilityTheory.doc

Research on International Education as a Vehicle of U.S. Soft Power, 1945-2000

Recently, I finished some research on international education as a vehicle of soft power in the United States. The first aim of my research was to determine the intended outcome of the international education legislation and funding in the United States between 1945 and 2000.

Throughout the United States’ history of international education legislation and funding it is clear that soft power is an underlying objective of the federal government. The term “cultural exchange” is used frequently throughout the related literature and legislative language. Often times the term “cultural exchange” is used interchangeably with the term “international educational exchanges.” The interchangeability of these two terms, however, was more prevalent in the literature and legislation of the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s. These two terms were used more separately in the 1970’s through the year 2000.

Another finding is, that for the most part, the language used during the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s focused more on “mutual understanding between cultures” while the language used during the 1990’s and into 2000 had a much stronger tone and emphasized the benefit to the “national security” of the United States. An exception to this is the National Defense Education Act of 1958 which encouraged and supported international education exchanges but the focus was more on U.S. national security and competition with the Soviet Union during this challenging period of the Cold War.

Interestingly, the language used in The International Academic Opportunity Act not only focused on the benefit that these study abroad scholarships would give to the United States in terms of soft power and national security but it also focused on the personal benefits that scholarship recipients gain and that the purpose of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship was to better prepare students to assume significant roles in an increasingly global economy. It took until the year 2000 for the federal government to fully understand the economic benefits of international education exchanges and that the economic dimension is just as important to the United States as soft power and national security objectives.

I was also interested in investigating the importance that the international education legislation and literature place on the inflow of international students and scholars into the United States and on the outflow of American students and scholars who are studying and/or conducting research abroad? It’s not surprising that in the years immediately following World War II and into the 1960’s the federal government and the greater higher education community placed significant importance on the inflow of international students and scholars into the United States. Certainly, the federal government saw value in funding and supporting U.S. students and scholars going abroad for academic purposes but their main focus was on the academic inflow into the United States. While support for international education exchanges increased through the last half of the twentieth century, the international education legislative focus of the 1990’s and into 2000 tended to favor the outflow of U.S. students and scholars than on the inflow of academics from abroad. What changed, however, was that major federal legislation focusing on international students and scholars in the United States was found more in the immigration arena.