22, no. 1 (Fall 1990): Back Matter
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Back Matter Fall 1990
The National Task Force on Undergraduate Education Abroad Publishes Report
The National Task Force on Undergraduate Education Abroad published A National Mandate for Education Abroad: Getting on with the Task in May 1990. The task force was established by the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA), the Council on International Education Exchange (CIEE), and the Institute of International Education (IIE) in June 1989 and adopted the following mandate:
- To make undergraduate study and other academically related experiences abroad a higher national priority, with particular reference to such specific needs as increasing financial support, ensuring greater diversity of opportunity and program participation, and guaranteeing program quality.
- To initiate and introduce language in existing legislation to facilitate and expand undergraduate study abroad, develop new legislation at state and federal levels, and explore and support nonlegislative governmental avenues of funding.
- To develop an action agenda for the exchange field and the broader higher-education community and involve these constituencies in the advocacy and implementation of the task force's recommendations.
The work of the task force resulted in five major recommendations (discussed at length in the report):
- Education abroad should be expanded so that, by the year 2000, ten percednt of American college students will have a significant educational experience overseas as undergraduates.
- Efforts should be directed toward fostering increased diversity in participating students, in foreign locations, and in types of programs.
- “Curricular connections” should be introduced to integrate the study-abroad experience into regular degree programs.
- Major inhibitors must be vigorously addressed. These include insufficient institutional commitment, negative views among faculty members, restrictive curricular requirements, foreign language deficiences, inadequate support services for study abroad both on campus and overseas, inadequate information about opportunities and their relative quality, and financial regulations and shortfalls.
- Funding from private and public sources must be expanded if students, institutions, and experiences involved in study abroad are to be diversified.
The report is available from the National Assn. for Foreign Student Affairs, 1860 19th St., NW, Washington, DC 20009.
Arab World Debates Language Choice for University Instruction
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the questin of whether university instruction should take place in English and French or in Arabic is under intense debate in the Arab world. The 18 April issue of the Chronicle notes that the conflict orginates in the opposition between the desires, on the one hand, to assert cultural identity by using Arabic and, on the other, to improve the quality of instruction by adopting the most up-to-date materials, which are available in English and French. In Iraq and Oman, English is increasingly used, according to the Chronicle , whereas at Kuwait University, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the Middle East, almost all subject areas outside medicine and science are taught in Arabic, and a proposal to phase out English altogether is under serious consideration. A Kuwait University official explains that cultural identity is not the only issue to be considered. Translations of needed textbooks can never be as up-to-date as recently published originals, but to study the most timely materials students must invest years learning a foreign language. “Once upon a time,” the official points out, referring to the Middle Ages, “Arabic was the language of scholarship” for the world.
© 1990 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 22, no. 1 (Fall 1990): Back Matter |
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