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The World Through a Different Window: |
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[The essay is an adaptation of a presentation given at the San Diego meeting of the International Union of Physiological Science, April 1-5,
2005.] The Nobel Prize winning economist James Buchanan advised his graduate students that, to be creative, they needed to “see the world through a different window.” I apply Buchanan’s admonition through the prism of my personal experience. Long ago, as an American college graduate of modest means, I was fortunate to win a year of total immersion in a non-American culture and university life; I stayed for two years and returned with a degree from a French university. The experience, which shaped my research career and enormously enriched me personally, coupled with years of observation since, convinced me that a research stay abroad has value intellectually, educationally, and practically. If Buchanan’s advice to see differently aims to stimulate creativity, then living and working in a foreign culture offers an incredible opportunity. Coping with a different culture challenges us to look at the world anew, to confront cultural filters daily that refract our perspective. Just as creativity benefits, so does practicality. The networks forged abroad can serve for a lifetime, both professionally and personally. Learning how to work in another culture hones abilities increasingly necessary in a global marketplace for talent and labor. The Indians of Bangalore have learned this lesson so well that now our work is being outsourced to them rather than their talent coming to study with us. Look at Thomas L. Friedman’s recent book, The World is Flat (1). The increasing competitiveness of research institutions beyond our borders is borne out by the academic ranking of 500 universities published in November 2004 by Shanghai Jiaotong University. Eight of the top 30 universities are non-American. In a similar list published on the other side of the globe by the London Times a few weeks later, nine of the top 20 universities are outside the United States. Universities in Tokyo, Kyoto, Beijing, Singapore, Canberra, and Melbourne—all concentrated in Australasia—are near the top of one list or the other. Bill Gates chose to open an advanced Microsoft research facility in India in January 2005 because, he states flatly, India and China are producing more of the best engineering minds than the United States. It is Microsoft’s second overseas research laboratory in Asia; the first opened in Beijing in 1998. Microsoft’s investment in Asia suggests a potential shift in the locus of excellence in research and education. An article in a recent New York Times/International Herald Tribune reported that China is “attracting a growing number of the brightest students, scholars, and professionals from southeast Asian countries” such as Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia. Five years ago, before the attacks on the World Trade Center, 6,250 Indonesian students received visas to the United States. In 2003, the number was 1,333, a decline of 79%. By contrast, 2,563 Indonesians were admitted to Chinese universities that same year, an increase of 51% over 2002! Indonesia’s post-1945 leadership was dubbed “the Berkeley Mafia” because so many had degrees from the University of California-Berkeley. Will those educated in China dominate a 21st century generation of Asian leaders? The United States has long profited from an infusion of non-American intellectual talent, but in the new global environment, the flow may be changing. In 2002, the United States had 586,000 foreign students enrolled in US universities—the largest foreign contingent in any one country. Great Britain ranked second, with 270,000, and Germany ranked third, with 227,000. Those numbers represented an increase for Britain of 15% and for Germany of 10%, but a decline of 6% for the United States. Our “brain gain” may be waning. Like Asia, Europe is investing in the internationalization of its research establishment. The European Union has mounted an aggressive effort (the Sixth Framework) to promote international experience in research and advanced study. The plan earmarks 17.5 billion Euros over five years to support programs that enhance the international exposure of European researchers. The European Community is also financing non-Europeans at European research installations. The European Community as a whole values the foreign research experience enough to put up money to expand access to it. Indications are prevalent that in Asia and in Europe money and thought are being invested in providing advanced researchers with opportunities for international experience—and that researchers are responding. By contrast, nearly every statistical indicator shows that support for international education in the United States holds a very low priority and that, even when opportunities exist, American researchers are unaware or uninterested in them. Throughout the 1990s, US applications for Fulbright Senior Scholar awards, for National Science Foundation fellowships to Japan, and for Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowships showed a marked decline. When college faculty were asked how many months during the past three years faculty members they had traveled abroad, 65 percent said none. About 80 percent of US faculty has never collaborated with a foreign scholar. Student participation in the international world is no more prevalent. Less than one percent of American college students study abroad and the vast majority of those participate in programs that last as few as eight weeks. Why this indifference? I suggest six propositions that account for the limited interest that Americans show towards a research experiences abroad:
Of these, our preeminence and our arrogance are the most troubling, and perhaps the least justified. It is true that for several decades the United States has enjoyed preeminence in research and higher education. The size alone of our educational establishment makes a case for our favored position—3,600 non-profit colleges and universities and another 3,000 similar proprietary schools. Our educational system has been open to applicants of widely varying social, economic, ethnic and national backgrounds, and prior educational attainment. This has been an attraction, as is the openness and flexibility of our professions and our economy. Our world political leadership has lent additional prestige, and the worldwide fascination since World War II with our popular culture has exerted a magnetism that has drawn many bright people here to learn and to pursue research and professional careers. Finally, the English language, especially the American idiom, dominates science and commerce, so that developing fluency confers a great advantage. |