Since I first came to Wichita State University in 1968, I’ve seen many changes in our institution of higher learning. One of the most powerful has been the increasing number of international students on campus. This is of central, not peripheral, importance to higher education in America.
I well remember when Al Vargo and Armin Gerhard started, with little support, the English as a Foreign Language program here. It began to bring students from places we had scarcely heard of — Malaysia, for instance, from which came 103 students in the early years of the program. The opportunity to meet students from around the world has given all of us a chance to get to know something more about the world, to make a friend, to broaden perspectives even without the money or time to travel.
One thing I have learned from international students and faculty and my own study abroad is that we Americans know far less about the rest of the world than they know about us, and far less than we need to know if we are to remain in a position of leadership. Our curriculum from grade school through university is shaped by the politics of the wider community: Where in our formal education do we learn about socialist governments in Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia? Where do we learn about the structure, function and history of nations governed by communist parties and principles? When we have international students here our students can learn from them what we do not learn in our formal institutions of higher education.
Much of what we consider general education about other countries is learned in high school. By the time students elsewhere in the world go to university, they are expected to specialize. Many who come here are glad to have the option and requirement to explore fields other than their own, although some find it annoying. Institutions of higher learning are far fewer in number in their own countries and only the very top students are admitted. Usually higher education, like other public services, is paid for largely by the government for those selected to attend. People in countries formerly colonized by Great Britain, France or other European countries continue to follow the educational systems of the former colonizers, and have to pass a difficult, standardized exam in order to pass out of high school. Many international students and faculty have been proud to say that they passed the Cambridge exam.
Yet, that whole system has the same problem the American system has: It emphasizes the history and priorities of the powerful and gives low priority to the lives, histories and arts of the powerless, which have always been central to the concerns of cultural anthropology and to the cultures, histories, arts and languages of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The United States is now visibly suffering the consequences of our failure to learn about these areas.
Probably a central difference between higher education here and there is the different perceptions of the role of education in society. Elementary and high school education is viewed here as in the public interest and necessary to create workers for the tasks of our society. That perception continues into higher education in many other societies. I well remember how shocked I was when I was a Fulbright student in New Zealand in 1955 to find that my student friends in education were receiving not only free room and board, but also a stipend for living expenses while they finished their degrees! They complained some about the obligation they incurred to teach for five years in country schools, but they seemed to recognize that this was fair.
International students at Wichita State seem to like it here in Wichita (that is, after they realize they are not in New York!), and they often see our society as more open than their own. They are sometimes surprised to find that many students here not only take classes but also work, yet many of them soon have to work themselves to pay for their education. They learn, as we do, that much of education takes place outside the classrooms, outside the ivied halls of academe; that there are pluses and minuses to their systems and our own.
Twenty years ago when I asked my anthropology students to write a report based on an interview or conversation with an international student, many of them were worried about finding someone to talk to. Today, the problem with that assignment is so many students have friends from other countries and cultures that they know more than what would have been required for my preliminary assignment!
What seems to me beyond dispute is, as Senator Fulbright foresaw, we all benefit from the opportunity to go to university together — to learn from one other.
