With the world getting smaller, colleges in Rhode Island are thinking bigger. Increasingly, these institutions are venturing beyond their campus confines to secure their place in the international marketplace and broaden their perspective.
universities and colleges are no longer content with recruiting students from the Northeast and in southern and western states where college-age populations are swelling. In recent years, they have set their sights on foreign markets, specifically the Middle East and Asia. They are expanding international programs, hiring more foreign faculty and building partnerships with universities around the world.
Bryant University visits boarding schools in Switzerland to recruit students from Kazakhstan and other far-flung corners.
The president of Salve Regina University, Sister Therese Antone, earned frequent flier miles this year, traveling to Kenya and Siberia to strengthen relationships with universities in those countries.
Roger Williams University helped establish a private institution in 2005 in Vietnam, American Pacific University, and may invite some Vietnamese students to come to Bristol for their final two years of college.
Two factors have fueled this global push — economics and diplomacy.
In an expanding global marketplace, colleges know their future depends on embracing an international point of view. About 570,000 foreign students come to the United States each year, according to the U.S. State Department, pumping billions of dollars into higher education.
The efforts of Rhode Island’s institutions of higher education are paying off. Last year, local colleges educated 3,477 foreign students — a 14.3-percent increase over the 2004-2005 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education, which estimates the students spent $111.3 million while they were here.
And an American college education or graduate degree may also be the best way to export capitalism, democracy and diplomacy around the world.
In fact, college leaders and the State Department have teamed up to promote U.S. higher education abroad. They recognize that student visa problems after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, combined with other countries’ aggressive recruitment of top foreign students from places such as India, China and Saudi Arabia, mean that the United States must work harder to draw international students. In March, Johnson & Wales University President John J. Bowen accompanied other college presidents and Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state, to New Delhi, to encourage Indian students to study here.
“I don’t think there is a single issue facing the world today that does not have a global underpinning, whether it be business, the environment, religion or education,” said Roger Williams University President Roy J. Nirschel. “You cannot be a well-educated person in a 21st-century context without having a global perspective. It’s as fundamental now as literacy.”
COLLEGES IN RHODE ISLAND have moved aggressively to form alliances with universities around the world and to encourage more of their own students to study abroad.
Roger Williams has a full-time admissions director who travels around the world recruiting foreign students. The university has 98 international students from 42 countries, and offers study abroad in 40 countries.
The university offers full scholarships to Afghan women through a program started by Paula Nirschel, wife of the university president. To encourage study abroad, the university provides a free passport to sophomores with a B-minus average or better.
The number of Salve Regina University students studying abroad has jumped from 21 students about a decade ago to 163 this year, and the university now offers financial aid for these foreign study programs. Salve Regina established the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy in 1996, and has hosted high-profile international leaders, including the Dalai Lama.
Bryant College went so far as to change its name to Bryant University three years ago, in part to better attract foreign students who associate “college” with the British term meaning high school.
Last year, 88 international students studied at Bryant. The university started a summer study-abroad program called the Sophomore International Experience, which allows students to travel to Western Europe, Russia or China with Bryant professors for two weeks and earn three academic credits. President Ronald K. Machtley is leading a group to Italy this summer.
Bryant was also the first college in Rhode Island to host a Confucius Institute, 1 of 15 in the nation. The institute receives support from the Chinese government, which pays for instructors in Mandarin and supplies thousands of dollars in books, DVDs and instructional materials to promote Chinese language and culture.
The University of Rhode Island also received permission to host a Confucius Institute earlier this year. URI added China to its competitive International Engineering Program this year, which already offers internships in Europe and Latin America, and is recruiting Chinese students and sending URI students to China.
“We recognize that having international students and sending students abroad contributes to the United States’ prosperity,” said Lynn Pasquerella, URI’s vice provost for academic affairs. “Actively recruiting students from around the world enhances the experience of our students from Rhode Island, as well as the students who come here.”
The state’s other two public colleges, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island, are also branching into international programs to a greater degree.
RIC offers a summer study-abroad program in London and a Spanish-language program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The college recently opened an Institute for Portuguese and Lusophone World Studies. CCRI hosted a leadership-training program earlier this month for 20 young people from the Dominican Republic. This past school year, CCRI had 105 international students from 39 countries.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is eager to promote American colleges and universities abroad. The United States has become more aggressive in its efforts in the last few years, realizing it faced two challenges: real and perceived student visa obstacles after the 9/11 attacks and increased competition for foreign students from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The terrorist attacks may have also helped leaders see more clearly the pivotal role education plays in enhancing America’s reputation abroad.
“I think 9/11 was a wakeup call that the United States needed to learn more about other countries and needed more people to know about this country,” said Didier Bouvet, director of international and transfer admissions at Roger Williams. “The more you educate people from around the world, the more they will understand your culture. The more ties you create through education, the more peaceful the world will be.”
The State Department is sponsoring high-powered junkets by government and higher education officials to strategic countries such as China, Japan, Korea and India.
Johnson & Wales University President Bowen said he and the other college presidents he traveled with to New Delhi in March spread the message that the United States welcomes foreign students and can provide broad educational experiences. These include research institutions, community colleges and niche programs, such as the hospitality and tourism degree offered by Johnson & Wales.
“Twenty years ago, internationalization was a nice word in a textbook. Now it’s a reality,” Bowen said. “Our students are studying around the world.”
Within the next five years, Bowen anticipates about 25 percent of Johnson & Wales’ students will study abroad for a semester.
“It’s a world economy right now, and we have to realize our students will be doing business with India, with Asia,” Bowen said. “It really helps to break down barriers when you understand the culture or speak the language.”
COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY leaders in Rhode Island say the focus on globalization and international programs will only intensify in the future. They note that interest in foreign language courses, particularly Arabic and Chinese, is surging. They also hope international education will expand to embrace students who a generation ago would not have considered studying abroad.
“We have to understand people from their own perspective, not just ours,” Roger Williams President Nirschel said. “We need to build understanding between the Western and Islamic worlds, and we need to bring people here to show them the upside and positives of American values.”
Until recently, the majority of foreign students either came from wealthy families or were top students at elite institutions who received scholarships from their home countries.
Today, not just Ivy League colleges are reaching out to students around the world.
“Fundamentally, people understand that the more diversity there is, the better the quality of the education,” Bowen said.
Johnson & Wales and Roger Williams, for example, each give out about $1 million a year in scholarships to foreign students — something that was unheard of 10 or 15 years ago.
Public institutions are restricted from offering such scholarships, but can sweeten offers to foreign graduate students by offering teaching and research assistantships or by raising private money to help foreign students, said URI’s Pasquerella.
“Traditionally, some colleges have looked at international students as a cash cow,” Nirschel said. “But we don’t want only the economically elite and not just business students. We need to make sure we tap into the various strata of society. We also want architects and educators, because that is what these countries really need to develop.”Labels: financial aid, scholarship, study abroad |
