An American Education vs. An Education from America

I got sucked into several articles last week that examined the increasing number of Chinese students arriving on our campuses. I found the articles especially timely and telling for my institution.

"Do I think the budget squeeze is driving the rush to international?" Mr. Melcher says. "Unfortunately, yes."

In the past six years our office of International Affairs has been incredibly focused on growing enrollments for international students. They have placed a strong emphasis on recruiting undergraduates from China, and have seen numbers grow from around 20 in 2006 to over 200 in 2011. The plan is to continue to grow this population to as many as 500 students in the next 5 years. This growth has been largely connected to the re-establishment of our relationship with the China Agricultural University in Beijing, and the rebirth of our International College Beijing through CU Denver. In 2007 the first cohort of students arrived from China and in 2009 we sent our first group of American students to Beijing. These students are largely sponsored by the Chinese government and provide guaranteed tuition and fee dollars, as well as guaranteed “heads in beds” for our student housing. The program is a feather in many peoples cap.

The program has also created a lot of work and presented some challenges for our campus. (Many of these challenges seem to fall outside of the Office of International Affairs… hmmmm….) It has been an interesting adventure working with these students and the Office of International Affairs in terms of housing, student conduct, and transfers. It has also been interesting to have candid conversations with some of my friends and colleagues on the faculty about the impact this has had on some of their courses and their concerns about the direction they believe we are heading. The article mirrored experience after experience, conversation after conversation, and question after question that we have had on our campus.

For officials like Delaware's Mr. Stevens, who has been dealing with international students for nearly three decades, Chinese undergraduates are like a code he's still trying to decipher: "How can we reach them? How can we get them to engage?"

Each fall we work on a new “international buddy” program and other ways to encourage the new group of students to connect with the campus community. Both articles speak to this very concept, somewhat questioning if these students want to engage, and how the messages about US culture may impact that desire. We have seen students request to live together and often times work on room changes in order to live with each other. In many ways we are questioning how we assign rooms from the beginning.

We have had several faculty express concerns about language skills in the classroom. Several members of the biology faculty are frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of preparedness and understanding that is impacting their ability to teach. They are concerned that students without the “basic” language skills needed are taking time away from other students and slowing the pass and learning in the classroom.

We have started conversations about streamlining our academic integrity policies and procedures and creating an enhanced and extended session for international orientation to set clearer expectations concerning issues of plagiarism, etc. We have also had a few occasions where faculty have received calls from other schools following up on letters of recommendation for students attempting to transfer. These faculty members never wrote the letters. After some investigation it was discovered that these letters were written by an “agent” in China.

Wow. I know that I knew all of this before reading the article. It was just enlightening to be reminded of what I already know. It was amazing to have so many “a ha” and “duh” moments combined in a few short articles. Having this information will help me to think about how to approach these issues as we prepare for the next group in the fall. The article raises a point that we rarely talk about on campus, the tensions (growing) between the US and China color the trust and value students place in us. How much do these same messages color our trust and perceptions?

I also really appreciated the second article that discussed ways to combat some of the challenges of cheating and falsified documents concerning language skills. The concept of a Skype interview was intriguing to me, and somewhat an obvious first step. What better way to confirm language skills than to have a conversation? I also liked many of the questions that got at finding “fit” for the campus experience. I just am curious who will take on this process on my campus…

A final thought that really grabbed my attention comes from the following section of the article

Her students, she says, don't see this intense test-prepping as problematic: "They think the goal is to pass the test. They're studying for the test, not studying English."

I have concerns that this is the direction that we are heading in this country. Standardized tests and “accountability” have in many ways lead to “teaching for the test” and have taken away from learning. My earlier post about APA style is also in line with these concerns. What is the value of education and what do we value in education. Who gets to decide?