By Patricia H. Kushlis
The subtitle of William P. Kiehl’s comparative study about the international activities of three Pennsylvania colleges is entitled How Colleges Can Create International Communities. Whether this subtitle should have ended with a question mark and been rephrased to read “How Can Colleges Create International Communities – Or Can They and Should They?” is a question worth asking. Each of the three private colleges in question approaches the problem of internationalization differently.
These colleges range from Dickinson College (Carlisle) with its decades old international orientation which attracts a nationwide student body to Elizabethtown and Gettysburg Colleges both of which have been – and remain - more inwardly focused. This, despite their recent attempts to jump – albeit half-heartedly - on the “internationalization” bandwagon in the aftermath of 9/11. Gettysburg College has been the more successful of the two – but both have far to go before they even reach – in my view - the 50 yard line.
In all fairness, Dickinson’s student body is far more diverse geographically. Students are attracted to the college because of its long term focus on international affairs as opposed to either of the two other colleges included in Kiehl’s study. In contrast, Elizabethtown in particular but also Gettysburg College has mostly appealed to students locally.
Town vs. Gown: Parallel not Mutually Supportive Universes
Yet what interests me the most about this book is that Kiehl not only looks at what happens on campus to the three different student bodies, faculties and staffs but also the results of the campus internationalization programs that have been undertaken and how each interacts with and impacts on its local community: the fishbowl in which the college fish supposedly swim as it were.
The problem is that in all three cases, the fishbowl and the fish do not seem to interact much. Internationalization efforts on campus have usually had minimal impact on the respective local communities. The communities and the campuses - with too few exceptions – seem, sadly, to operate in parallel – and not necessarily mutually supportive - universes.
Does It Have to Take the Feds?
The only time the two intersected well was during a summer program funded by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This interrelationship happened only because the federal grant to the college that financed the program stipulated the need for community involvement.
Unfortunately, the all too familiar divide between “town and gown” reigns supreme in the internationalization arena, too. I’ve seen this problem here in New Mexico. Only the university’s sports teams – and the medical faculty and hospital - have jumped the barrier.
Should the "town-gown" divide matter for improving Americans' knowledge of the world?
The real question regarding bridging the “town-gown” divide is whether or not it matters with respect to improving this country’s knowledge of international affairs.
I think it does and I think the chronically underfunded portion and poorly designed civilian side of the foreign affairs bureaucracy is one part of the problem.
Isn’t it just as important for all US citizens to be well informed about what our government is doing abroad as it is for a relatively small number of people on a university campus to benefit from opportunities to learn from and interact with foreign visitors – or to study and travel abroad themselves? At election time, after all, the law is one person, one vote.
One problem, in my view, is that only pieces of the “gown” portion of our society are exposed to the efficacy of “smart power” – to use Professor Joseph Nye’s term. How many college students ever take even a single basic course in international or comparative politics - unless they plan to major in political science or history? Let alone study abroad themselves?
The World Through a Military Lens
Worse, too often the “town” side of the equation is, it seems, almost exclusively exposed to the world and US foreign policy through a military lens. For too many of these voters – college educated or not - the only solution for dealing with problems abroad is through the application of force. That’s all they know.
Furthermore, US military recruiting offices are ubiquitous across these United States. They are easily accessible and located - it seems - in almost every shopping center especially in rural America and poorer sections of our cities. Meanwhile, with the exception of Veterans for Peace, too many well organized and well-heeled Veterans groups are busily lobbying Congress for ever greater defense expenditures often in tandem with the multitude of defense contractors who not only exploit America's “fear” factor but also have production facilities strategically located in every state whether the military says it needs their products or not.
At the same time, too many Peace Corps recruiting offices were shuttered during the Bush administration. The US Foreign Service remains miniscule. Local media has restricted itself to covering only local events. Reporting of international news has become almost non-existent – because the demand, supposedly, is not there besides sending an American correspondent abroad cuts into the news corporation's profits.
In the end, Kiehl has put his finger on a major failing of American higher education today. It has a crucial job to perform in educating our citizenry about the world. It can do it much better- off-campus as well as on. It needs to. Beginning now.
William P. Kiehl, Global Intentions Local Results: How Colleges Can Create International Communities,2009.