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National Fulbright administrator reports deepening chill abroad in attitudes toward Americans
By DONNA BUDNIEWSKI
Reporter Assistant Editor
While applications for Fulbright scholarship programs are up, students and scholars already engaged in academic exchange overseas are noticing a deepening chill abroad in attitudes toward Americans, the executive director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the Fulbright Scholar Program and other higher education programs, reported during a lecture at UB on Oct. 7.
Patti McGill Peterson, who also serves as vice president of the Institute of International Education (IIE) and has been president of Wells College and St. Lawrence University, spoke on "Meeting the Challenge of International Education in a Code Orange World." Her lecture was the first in a yearlong series, titled "International Education: At the Frontiers of Learning," sponsored by the Council on International Studies and Programs and the Office of the Vice Provost for International Education.
International students and scholars coming to the U.S. aren't fairing much better at times, facing the very real prospect of a "cyber version of Ellis Island," Peterson said.
She contended that developments in the U.S. in two areas are impacting international education: security issues on the home front and how Americans are regarded abroad, both of which are exacting a toll on the realization of many U.S. institutions' goals for education abroad.
While "code orange" is an apt metaphor for the challenges Americans face today, noted Peterson, futurists in 1999-2000 dreaming of a global community in the new millennium didn't foresee a post-9/11 world.
"One thing is certain," she pointed out. "There is more anti-Americanism around the world—and not just among Arab populations." Many institutions in India and Latin America, for example, are rethinking their support of American scholars and some even have called for boycotts of American and British educational institutions, she said.
"We're three years into a new century…looking back, the prognosticators described a much more interdependent world. 1999-2000 was replete with stories about a new century. They may have envisioned a brave new world of global togetherness," Peterson said, but added that less than 1 percent of the American student body was studying abroad.
"Is this emblematic of a brave new world?" she asked, noting that American faculty members have found themselves more isolated from the global community than their international counterparts.
Peterson also alluded to a recent survey conducted by Melvin DeFluer, a Boston University faculty member, that asked 1,300 high school students from 12 countries about their attitudes toward Americans. Only Argentineans reported positive feelings toward U.S. citizens, she said.
The survey found that the teens held consistently negative views, shaped largely by made-in-America movies, TV programs and popular music.
Teens were surveyed in Saudi-Arabia, Bahrain, South Korea, Mexico, China, Spain, Taiwan, Dominican Republic, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy and Argentina.
Peterson called the Fulbright program an extensive roadmap for public diplomacy and peacekeeping that has generated "deep reservoirs of goodwill" around the world, contributing to the growing, mutual and continued respect between countries like the U.S. and Japan—once mortal enemies during WWII that now can claim 50 fruitful years of academic exchange.
"People diplomacy can't be replace by official shuttle diplomacy of visiting heads of state," said Peterson.
"These are not frills, not luxuries, but fundamental necessities for the future," she emphasized. Seeing the bridges and connections between study abroad and the commerce of ideas and people has the capacity to build a network of peace, she added.
The strength of U.S. institutions is admired around the world, Peterson said, but added that Americans need to ask why the level of U.S. students studying abroad is still relatively low compared to other countries—she suggested it may be evidence of the more provincial attitudes of Americans toward this country and travel and education abroad.
"We need to take care, all of us, that we are not victims of our own strength," she said. Fulbright scholars, on the other hand, demonstrate the diversity of Americans, negating the stereotypical views that suggest we're all alike—the program itself, she explained, is an antidote to prejudice and stereotypes that thrive in ignorance. More than 75 percent of past Fulbright scholars report that they continue to collaborate with their former hosts and host countries, and 70 percent have been visited by their host countries colleagues or friends, noted Peterson.