A recent article shed some light on the difficulties encountered by foreign students trying to obtain student visas at American universities.
Cornelia Dean, a science editor for The New York Times, focused on the issue of science in Academia. American scientists are becoming apprehensive about foreign students being driven away from our national universities.
According to Dean, universities and scientific organizations that study the issue say they have heard increasing complaints of visa delays since last fall, particularly for students in the field of scientific engineering and other technical fields.
A U.S. State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, responded to The New York Times by saying that delays of two or three months were common and attributed the problem to “an unfortunate staffing shortage.”
Should we be surprised by this dilemma, particularly in a post-Sept. 11 world? The U.S. was attacked in a theatrical fashion by using an epitome of modern technology — the airplane.
In reality, however, the airplane seems primitive when compared to our present day global threats of radioactive “dirty bombs” and nuclear proliferation. Science is the new king. Because the concept of “the West” is synonymous with technology, are we then the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge?
The question is central to Dean’s article. She states that American universities rely on foreign students to fill graduate and postdoctoral science and engineering programs. Foreign talent also fuels scientific and technical innovation in American labs. The United States can no longer assume that our country serves as an aspiring student’s first choice for undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate work.
According to “Beyond ‘Fortress America,'” a report in January by the National Academy of Sciences, universities around the world maintain research equipment and infrastructure that competes with their American counterparts.
As the United States puts up barriers, “Foreign universities are well positioned to extend competing offers,” according to the report.
Naturally, student applicants from “problem” countries or regions such as the Middle East are more closely examined. This is a fact that must be accepted.
The trend is hardly shocking. My parents emigrated from Iran to the United States in search of a higher education. They arrived in Los Angeles in 1977 and they both recollect the application process being extremely easy.
However, it should be noted that they completed their application process two years before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, when the Shah of Iran was considered America’s No. 1 ally in the entire region.
At what point will national security override the importance of the academic cultural fabric that an American university education provides?
During the second half of the 20th century, past and present foreign leaders built their resumes via their studies in the United States. They were then able to export American academic ideology back to either their friendly or hostile nations.
An article in the Los Angeles Times in 1950 by Robert Harris eloquently summarized the importance of foreign students in our society: “To the United States, seeking its proper role in world democracy’s most important activities — an export-import bank which deals in one of the best securities on Earth: international understanding wrapped up in a person.”
Hanif Zarrabi is a Middle Eastern studies graduate student and a columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.