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GUEST COLUMN
International
students add
to our state, national strength
By Dr. Larry Nielsen, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Recently, NC State received hundreds of media calls – and CNN spent two days on campus – when an international graduate student who studied here for one semester five years ago was labeled a “person of interest” in the London bombings. (After the former student was cleared of involvement, however, we have received no calls.)
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Nielsen
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Few of us react to such news with the fevered pitch exhibited by the media, but that incident suggests that many of us may harbor misgivings about international students – feelings of “they are taking over our universities,” of “better safe than sorry,” of “American universities for American students.”
If those concerns prevail, we could be diminishing one of the exceptional strengths of U.S. higher education – our access to talent worldwide. In several ways, international students and scholars provide great value to our institutions and to the ultimate vitality of our state and nation.
The first and perhaps most fundamental reason for welcoming international students and scholars in our universities is that they help us become true citizens of the world. We all recognize the broadening experience of overseas travel; that experience is multiplied when we invite others to live with us – not only do we get to know them, they get to know us. At NC State, among our 6,300 graduate students, we count 1,300 international students, bringing us the culture, richness and diversity of 88 countries – and those countries become friends of North Carolina.
The second reason for including international scholars is that we need the best and brightest to fuel our innovation and discovery – no matter where they were born. Our nation’s colleges and universities are the engines powering our research enterprise and driving our economic development and national security. International scientists are part of the fuel for those engines. For example, more than one-third of the Nobel Laureates in the United States are foreign born.
NC State has been called “a patent powerhouse” in the life sciences by The Scientist magazine; the discoveries that drove those patents have greatly enhanced our state’s surging life-science industry, including access to world markets. We owe much to the international students and scholars who are part of our scientific and engineering research teams.
The third reason for seeking international students and scholars is that a significant number of faculty members at our research-extensive universities were once international graduate students studying in the United States. According to the National Science Board, 19 percent of U.S. science and engineering faculty members are foreign-born. In short, international students are win-win propositions – they get an education, and we get the best of their creativity and innovation.
Many people also wrongly think that international students are taking over our universities. In recent years, however, the opposite has occurred. The Council of Graduate Schools documented a 16 percent decline in international enrollment between 2001 and 2004, and another 5 percent decline occurred this past year. The declines have been most acute in science and engineering, where we can least afford the loss of talented individuals.
These declines are occurring because visa policies have made it more difficult for international graduate students to come to the United States, because international students believe we no longer welcome “foreigners,” and because other nations are eagerly filling in as we back away. International enrollments have been increasing in Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. Europe has surpassed the United States in the number of Ph.D.s produced annually, and Asia isn’t far behind. In Europe, recruitment of international graduate students is part of a strategy “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.”
Thomas Friedman’s recent book, “The World is Flat,” demonstrates conclusively that we are one global community today, with expertise, knowledge and innovation moving effortlessly and virtually instantaneously from one part of the globe to another. If we in the United States – and we in North Carolina – wish to remain at the forefront of the world’s economy and standard-of-living, we must understand and embrace people from all over the world. Rather than discouraging or fearing international students, we should be welcoming them.
Posted Aug. 26, 2005
All Rights Reserved
