Read the following article and answer the
questions:
1- What is the main reason for the increase of foreigners among university presidents?
2- What is the number of international academics in the USA?
3- What is the percentage of foreign students in the US?
4- What does Nariman mean by the phrase, “value of my contributions and the content of my character”? Explain.
More Foreign-Born Scholars Lead U.S.
Universities
When Molly Easo Smith
delivered her inaugural address as president of Manhattanville
College last spring, she opened with an unusual line: “Welcome,
namaste, vannakkam, namaskaaram, bienvenidos and welcome.”
Chris Meyer
MICHAEL
A. McROBBIE, PRESIDENT OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY Dr. McRobbie, who was recruited from Australia 14 years ago,
said of his friends and colleagues in Indiana, “They treat me like a local with
a funny accent.”
Joyce Dopkeen for The New York Times
MOLLY
EASO SMITH Dr. Smith, the
president of Manhattanville College, was born in Chennai, India.
Stevens Institute of Technology
NARIMAN FARVARDIN Dr. Farvardin, the president of Stevens
Institute of Technology, grew up in Iran.
Three of
the greetings were in languages from her native India: Hindi, Tamil and
Malayalam. They reflected the striking journey Dr. Smith had made from her
birthplace in Chennai — where she had never dated or been outdoors past 6 p.m. when
she left at age 23 — to the pinnacle of American higher education: a college
presidency.
As
colleges in the United States race to expand study-abroad programs and even to
create campuses overseas, they are also putting an international stamp on the president’s
office. Dr. Smith, 52, has joined an expanding roster of foreign-born college
and university leaders.
The Association
of American Universities, which represents large research campuses in
the United States and Canada, said that 11 of its 61 American member
institutions have foreign-born chiefs, up from 6 five years ago. In the past
two months, three colleges in the New York region have appointed presidents
born abroad: Cooper
Union tapped a scholar originally from India; Seton Hall University,
a candidate from the Philippines; and Stevens Institute of Technology, a
native of Iran.
The
globalization of the college presidency, higher-education experts say, is a
natural outgrowth of the steady increase of international students and
professors on American campuses over the past four decades. And it will most
likely lead to more relationships and exchanges abroad, they say, while giving
students a stronger sense that they are world citizens — a widely advertised
goal in academia.
“There’s
a logic to seeing individuals born in other nations, who have excelled in their
scholarly work, now move into college presidencies,” said Molly C. Broad,
president of the American Council on Education, which represents two- and
four-year colleges. “I think the trend will continue and maybe even accelerate
as more people move up in the faculty ranks, becoming deans and provosts.”
That
trend extends to Washington, where a year ago President Obama named a
native of Argentina, Eduardo M. Ochoa, to be his top adviser on higher
education, as an assistant secretary in the Department of
Education.
The
number of international scholars working at colleges and universities in the
United States — as researchers, instructors and professors — rose to 115,000
last year, an all-time high, from 86,000 in 2001. That growth, documented by
the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group in New York, came
despite the problems in obtaining visas after 9/11.
Allan E.
Goodman, the institute’s president, said he had an “epiphany” two years ago
about the changing landscape at a banquet in Washington. The gathering honored
about 40 scholarship recipients — undergraduates at the nation’s strongest
institutions in math and science.
“The
first thing I noticed was that nobody looked like me,” said Dr. Goodman, who is
white. “At least half, if not two-thirds, were international students. They
were from India, Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and yet they were Harvard students,
Stanford students, Rice students. It just reminded me that American higher
education is not American. It’s for the whole world.”
Still,
academic leaders from foreign countries where English is an official language,
or is at least widely spoken, may have an edge. Of the foreign-born presidents
of institutions that belong to the Association of American Universities, three
are from Canada (including Shirley M. Tilghman,
at Princeton), one is from South Africa and one is from Australia. The other
six hail from China, Greece, France and Cyprus.
While
many presidents first arrived in the United States as unproven graduate
students, Michael A. McRobbie, president of Indiana University,
was recruited 14 years ago from Australia National University to be Indiana’s
vice president of information technology, as well as a professor of computer
science. He became provost in 2006 and president the following year.
Dr.
McRobbie found the Midwestern university to be remarkably diverse, with several
thousand international students representing some 100 countries. There are now
about 50 students from Australia alone.
He also
encountered a warm welcome, feeling every bit a Hoosier. Last fall, on his 60th
birthday, Dr. McRobbie took the oath of allegiance as an American citizen,
along with his three grown children. “I have been here a long time and have
become well accepted in this state,” he said. “They treat me like a local with
a funny accent.”
Other
journeys to American academia have been more turbulent. Nariman Farvardin, who
in January was named president of Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken,
N.J., recalls struggling to finish college in Iran in the late 1970s, just as
the Islamic Revolution broke out.
“The
government decided to shut down the university completely,” he said. “I
remember there was a tank parked in front of the main entrance of the
university. There were daily strikes and demonstrations, and buildings were on
fire.”
Then 22
and only a semester shy of graduation, he contacted the American colleges that
had accepted him to graduate school. He asked if they would take him instead as
a transfer student — immediately. Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute said yes, and within weeks, he was en route to
Troy, N.Y., from Tehran.
“I was in
a state of shock,” Dr. Farvardin, 54, recalled. “I had very little money and no
knowledge of the English language.”
He went
on to earn a bachelor’s, a master’s and a doctorate from Rensselaer. He then
spent the next 27 years at the University of Maryland,
where he rose from assistant professor to provost, becoming an American citizen
along the way.
“I give
an enormous amount of credit to this country,” he said. “There would have been
no other place in the world that would have judged me by the value of my
contributions and the content of my character. Quite frankly, right now I look
at myself as an American, and I think others do as well.”
Although
many colleges have tentacles firmly planted abroad, the influx of foreign-born
presidents could extend that reach. Dr. Smith, president of Manhattanville College
in Purchase, N.Y., where 16 percent of the student body is from outside the
United States, said she was interested in exploring an exchange with her alma
mater, Madras Christian College, one of India’s leading schools.
“I would
love to make that connection,” said Dr. Smith, who became an American citizen
in 1989.
Dr. Farvardin, too, wants
to ensure that Stevens Institute of Technology is making the most of
international study. “We live in an increasingly interconnected world,” he
said. “If you haven’t given students the exposure and appropriate experience in
how to deal with the global economy, you’ve done them a disservice.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/education/10presidents.html