Emma Lazarus' words inscribed on Lady Liberty have welcomed immigrants to America's shores since the statue--a gift from the nation of France (yes, we were friends once)--was unveiled in 1886. At the beginning of the 20th Century, hundreds of thousands passed through the "golden door" to seek better opportunities in the United States.
These days, some might scoff at the Lady's pledge. The golden door is only open to those lucky enough to get the right visas, and even if they do get through, they may be subjected to fingerprinting, background checks, limitations on the durations of their visits and other hassles. Of course, it also depends on the day's color-alert.
But research institutions like Duke are doing their best to assure entrance to a distinct group of huddled masses--scholars from around the globe. Although they may not be that tired, or poor--or particularly tempest-tossed--these students still seek better opportunities here, whether better-funded research, more interdisciplinary education, or simply a taste of another way of life. Many also cite the flexibility of American universites, especially when compared with European higher education.
This year, 539 students from 87 countries entered Duke, bringing the total number of internationals to 1503. Though the undergraduate population continues to rise, the graduate student population is growing faster, with 1193 students currently attending the school, up from 1093 last year.
In October 2003, the University renewed its commitment to internationalization, lauding its own success in the field, and setting new goals that include national leadership and international recognition, international partnerships with foreign institutions and cooperation for international development. Most significantly for many international students, the University also expanded its financial aid packages.
Rather than navigate treacherous waters in passenger ships, Duke's internationals navigate university web pages from their home computers. Lightning-fast e-mail exchanges secure their passages to a New World that to many of them may not be so new. But when they step onto the shores of the Gothic Wonderland, they still encounter surprises and ambiguities for which they weren't quite prepared. And although there is no Little Italy under the Bryan Center Walkway, or Chinatown on East Campus, international students often tend to stick to their own, despite the University's best efforts at internationalization. But even if Duke isn't always a melting pot, the presence of international students adds to the richness of all students' experiences and outlooks.
Arthur Appianda's path to Duke took quite a few twists and turns. A fellow at the Duke Center for International Development's Program in International Development Policy, his life before Duke included a professorship at the University of Ghana, a stint in Ghana's parliament, political detention and work at numerous non-profits and non-governmental organizations.
This diversity of life experience does not necessarily set him apart from other PIDP fellows--mid-career professionals from all over the world. PIDP began in 1987 and this year counts 68 students within its ranks representing 36 countries, 40 percent of which are considered developing economies. After completing one- or two-year master's degree programs, PIDP fellows tend to go on to careers with their home governments or may go to work for large, international organizations such as the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or smaller NGOs and non-profits.
Appianda completed his undergraduate work in his native Ghana (which he interjects with a laugh is "where all the good guys come from") where he studied African Studies and Music. He first came to the United States on a Fullbright scholarship, receiving a master's from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. from Wesleyan in anthropology and ethnomusicology. His study abroad was also funded by a staff development program at the University of Ghana, so when he returned he was obligated to join the faculty.
He recounts initial frustrations and difficulties with America's more individualistic society, as well as adjustments to this country's less rigid university system. His return to American university life has been a smoother transition, as he has lived in Colorado for the last 17 years.
Upon returning to Ghana, Appianda taught at the university for a brief period, and then decided to run for office as a congressman. He was elected, but after only one term in office, the Ghanaian government was ousted in a coup d'etat. As chair of the parliamentary committee on presidential affairs, Appianda was in a position to spearhead initiatives in parliament, and thus was viewed as a key government official. So when the government was overthrown, he and other top officials were rounded up by the military and sent to political detention.
"It's a nice way of saying you're in prison," he explains. "When a prominent person is murdered, you say he's been assassinated.... When a politician is sent to prison, it's always political detention."
Appianda spent the next six months thinking about what he wanted to do with his life, and when he came out of prison, he left academia and government work behind, going to work as the African director for the Washington, D.C.-based organization, Prison Fellowship International.
His newfound interest in prison reform was hardly surprising, given his experiences, but Appianda also explains the cause's particular relevance in the context of leadership in the developing world.
"Seventy-five percent of all political leadership in the third world have been in prison," he says matter-of-factly. "That's how you go through the process. You challenge the guy who's there; he puts you in prison; you come back; he gets overthrown...."
After working for five years in Nairobi, Appianda says he "got burned out" and decided to return to the United States. This time he came to Colorado, where he continued his work in the non-profit sector. Most recently he worked as president and CEO of an NGO called the Global Leaders Initiative, which creates platforms for capacity building. But last year, Appianda got the itch once again, and decided to resign his position and take an academic sabbatical. Appianda applied and was accepted to a number of schools--including Johns Hopkins and Harvard--but chose Duke because of a combination of the academic programs offered by the school (he is focusing on international conflict with a specialization in conflict management and resolution), and his correspondence with the faculty.
Appianda bubbles with enthusiasm as he describes his experience at Duke thus far. "The great thing about what's happening to me right now is the only thing I think about is my homework! I don't think about budgets, I don't think about human resources, I don't think about what to tell the board chairman.... As long as my homework is going on, it's great!"
And after just one semester at Duke, Appianda says he has already amassed a wealth of knowledge that he is eager to apply back home in Ghana and to other developing economies. He describes a turning point last semester when, as part of his economic foundations class, he was preparing a presentation on interest rates and decided to check Ghana's budget for a personally interesting example.
As a member of Ghana's parliament, Appianda had routinely consulted the national budget to inform his voting decisions. But revisiting the budget for his class project, Appianda had an epiphany of sorts: "For the first time, I read the national budget, presented by the minister of finance, and understood it! Prior to that time, I never understood concepts like consumer price index, GNP, GDP. And I had a Ph.D.!"
Recognizing that many of his colleagues were probably in a similar predicament--voting for initiatives they did not fully understand--Appianda says he hopes to remedy the situation by either working with or forming an organization that would offer intensive training, modeled after PIDP's, for new members of parliament.
Appianda acknowledges a possible conflict when American economists offer prescriptions for developing economies, but, he says, "a foreign economist will not have the baggage that a local economist will have." He lauds PIDP for its efforts to train nationals who will then be able to go back to their countries and apply what they have learned.
"I think the best is when they work together," he says.
For Claudia Penaloza, the decision to attend Duke was something of a compromise. After completing her undergraduate work in biology back in Caracas, Venezuela, she decided to look abroad to fulfill her dream of receiving a doctorate to study turtle conservation. A Fullbright recipient, she knew she wanted to be at a school where she could travel home regularly to continue her work with the turtles. Many of her undergraduate advisors pushed her to study in Europe, but her intensive search for an advisor eventually led her to contact the Nicholas School's Larry Crowder, a professor of marine biology. Duke's offer of the funds needed to cover her educational expenses proved the final draw for Penaloza, after e-mail exchanges with Crowder enticed her to apply.
Penaloza enters Alpine Atrium with a large, plastic knee brace on her leg. It looks rather serious, but she hasn't had knee surgery; rather, the contraption is there to assure that her quadriceps muscle, overdeveloped from cycling, doesn't put too much pressure on her knee.
Penaloza uses her bike every day, to get from her off-campus house to various Nicholas School classrooms, where she is now in the first year of a Ph.D. program. Even though Durham's drivers are at times less than eager to share the road, she is adamant in her commitment to this form of transportation: "A car is just money down the drain. I'm going to keep riding my bike... even if I get killed on it!" she says with a laugh.
In Europe, Penaloza gripes, using a bike as primary means of transportation would not be such a hassle. However, even after enumerating several ways in which her experience might have been "richer" had she chosen to study there, she says she does not regret her decision.
"Most of my peers would say, too bad you didn't go to Europe. And I'm like, 'you're right!'" she grins, but goes on to glowingly praise her advisor's enthusiasm and open-mindedness. "I think probably Larry Crowder was very decisive in me not caring so much that I didn't go to Europe."
Having spent part of her childhood in the United States, Penaloza did not expect to experience culture shock upon returning, but she recalls being struck by particular aspects of (U.S.) American life that may have escaped her at age 10.
Like Appianda, she was struck by her new peers' individualism. "Coming from a Latin culture, we're very cooperative and interdependent, maybe even dependent," she says. "[Here] I find that if I don't schedule things, then I'm sort of left out."
She also questioned a work ethic that drives many of her fellow students to be very unhappy. "You have to work very, very hard just to earn time for yourself. That doesn't sound right to me. If you want to go jog, just go jog! So what! Just go out!" she says, her face registering bewilderment and pity.
"I don't know if it's GDP," she muses, on what forces in the American psyche drive such behavior.
"Money..." she sighs. "It seems money moves everything and it's the only reason that U.S. Americans get up in the morning."
Penaloza says she has noticed this influence in her classes as well. Though biology may seem like a rather neutral subject, attitudes toward the environment are politicized by the United States' "particular history."
"Their history is that of an industrial nation," she explains. "[The United States] just took everything that was around it and turned it into money. Now developing countries are sort of selling out to that, but at the same time they depend on the Earth. The same forest you cut down to sell as lumber is the one that gives you the deer that you put on your plate. There you have something that the U.S. didn't have, which was feedback."
Penaloza bristles at the suggestion--a common doctrine of introductory Economics classes--that environmental protection is a "luxury good."
"In this country, it's a luxury good because you're separated from your environment and you can't feel it," she says.
Lessons such as these fuel Penaloza's contention that professors and students here are more narrowly on their own, "particular" view of the world, especially in comparison to their European counterparts.
Although she may disagree with some of the assumptions her professors at Duke make, Penaloza recognizes the value of studying in the United States in a very practical way: "Whether the rest of the world likes it or not, right now the U.S. has a lot of power, and things that happen in the U.S. end up affecting the rest of the world."
She said she still plans to return to Venezuela after graduation, but she wants to try to put as much of what she has learned into use as she can in order to "take the best of both worlds."
However, she cannot hide her dismay about fellow students who have chosen to pursue shorter degree programs in order to get better jobs in less time. "It sort of seems like underlying every decision there's a dollar sign instead of a happiness sign," she says.
Dollar signs were the first thing that Adrien Poncin noticed about Duke as well. The French student of Roman history explains that universities back in France subsist entirely on public funding, and private underwriting is considered a contamination of the spirit of research and science. At Duke, however, "[money is] the first thing you notice. You see that buildings look good, that money is all around."
But Poncin does not necessarily see money as a corrupting influence.
"I was told that all my life, " he laughs. "[But] I think if you have to look for bad influences, you won't find them here."
And he sees Duke as a worthy investment, though perhaps part of an elitist system. "It's quite possible, when you go out from Duke, to get your money back," he says. "I think the weak point of the system is that the majority of the people cannot benefit."
For Poncin, who is here on a one-year exchange from the Parisian university Paris-7, coming to Duke gave him the chance to circumnavigate the highly competitive and exclusionary French system, and revitalize his academic career.
After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Poitier in his hometown, and at La Sorbonne in Paris, Poncin signed up for the dreaded concours--so called because the test is really a competition, with funding for graduate study going only to the top finishers.
Unfortunately, Poncin was not among them. "I tried; I failed," he recounts, while making tea in the microwave and navigating his roommate's dirty dishes. "So I decided to try another way."
Poncin switched his studies from La Sorbonne to Paris-7, another of the 17 universities in the city, broadening the focus of his research from ancient Rome to the historiography of slavery. Paris-7 was attractive to him because of its numerous partnerships with foreign universities.
Poncin had never heard of Duke--hardly anyone has in France, he says, other than extreme basketball fans--but he knew he wanted to come to the United States because of this country's historical linkage to slavery. So he applied to a number of American universities through Paris-7, and when Duke offered him generous financial support, he jumped at the chance to come to North Carolina.
His family and friends were supportive, especially given his precarious situation, but many ribbed him for coming here to study.
"There are not a lot of people in France who really want to come to the United States right now, " he says, somewhat apologetically.
While Poncin says he did not experience culture shock upon arriving in the U.S., he noticed considerable differences in the work habits of his fellow students, who seem to spend more time with their work than his peers back in France do.
"When you come from France to the U.S., you expect things to be more efficient, more well-organized here, and most the time it's true--except for the way people do their homework or study," he says.
Poncin attributes this difference to differing motivations for French and American students. In the French university system, he explains, "money has no place. If you fail the concours, you're really fucked, you've got nothing! It doesn't depend on how much money your father put into the school, because he put in nothing."
Additionally, he has been surprised by the sort of pride his American peers seem to take in their excessive workloads. In telling his French friends back home the major differences that characterize American students, he offered the following example:
"Here, if you send an e-mail at two in the morning from the library, you would show in some way that you're in the library, and that would be positive," he says incredulously. "In France, that would be ridiculous! In the end, it's the same--everybody works until two in the morning, but the way it's seen is not the same."
But for Poncin, these differences are more superficial in the face of what he terms the most valuable component of his Duke experience--how he is treated by professors and by his peers. He recounts how he and a cousin, who is in his final year at the University of California--Davis, were discussing this aspect of American education.
"We asked ourselves what we are going to miss most, and it's definitely the respect. In France, if you're at the university--it's hard to translate--you're a... lazy state employee," he laughs, later translating the derogatory term as 'library rat.' "It's a very new experience to be in a country where being at the university is something people respect."
Presumably, Poncin will continue to receive more respect when he returns to France in the fall. He plans to spend this semester working on his dissertation, an endeavor he speaks of with a certain amount of dread, but he is clearly passionate about his area of study.
Receiving funding from Duke meant Poncin could advance his studies even without passing the councours and thus he is optimistic about the future. "My chances in France are a lot better than they were one year ago," he says.
Students like Appianda, Poncin and Penaloza and many of their international student classmates appear in sundry places around campus, ranging from grad-student lounges to the James Joyce.
Even the trip from East to West Campus shows the University is committed to internationalization, Appianda says.
"On the bus you have students from Russia, from Albania, from Tibet, everywhere... it's incredible," he says.
But is the admission of a diverse population enough? What else is necessary for successful internationalization?
"I don't know where I'd look to find whether or not Duke is committed to [internationalization]," Penaloza admits. She pauses and mulls the question, nibbling the carrot she has been intermittently chewing since the start of the interview.
True internationalization, she explains, comprises more than a diverse student body, but necessitates looking at things from a different point of view. She realizes, however this is not something the University could easily facilitate institutionally.
"How about you guys going other places?" she offers as a solution to Americans' inward orientation, adding that she is doubtful current study abroad programs fully 'internationalize' Duke students, most of whom will probably stick with other Americans when they study outside of the country.
"Make them travel... survival training in the Amazon... do without all the comforts for a week: without the air conditioning, the car, the washing machine, the drier...."
Poncin agrees that the University tends to be more inward-looking than schools back in France, all of which have distinct political orientations. He has observed a great deal of mutual ignorance between the United States and France, but says he does not see internationalization as having a responsibility to open people's minds. Unlike Penaloza, Poncin sees internationalization as primarily a social movement.
"For my case, the [internationalization] pledge is not just words," he says, but he concedes that on the whole, social internationalization is not occurring to the fullest extent, due primarily to the tendency of international students to self-segregate.
"I have met a lot of international students in Paris and I've seen that for them it was always difficult to meet French people," he says. "I kind of thought it was because of the French people!"
But now, he says, he sees the exact same situation mirrored on the other side of the Atlantic. He sees international students as standing apart, a group that is invited to attend the university, but not integrated. However, he does not think Duke's administration should mandate integration.
"Maybe it's my French anti-association thing, but I wouldn't like to be involved, like having to go to a place to meet people," he says.
However, he does think American students could be encouraged to mingle with internationals.
Karan Maheshwari, a junior from Bombay, India, believes that the University needs to step up its efforts. "When you're trying to internationalize a college, you're not just trying to lure more people here, you're trying to tell them why they should come here, hoping they'll go back and make a difference in their countries."
In addition, he says Duke should set up a more cohesive social structure for international students, and as it stands internationalization is simply "more rhetoric, it's more talk."
Penaloza agrees that the internationalization movement seems more superficial than substantial.
"Probably Duke is latching onto the international movement to look good because it's just the next expected step," she says. "But... if it makes things for international students easier, I figure they can do it for any reason they want!"
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