Harvard Hits the Road
Posted on March 18th, 2010 in Uncategorized |
The Globe writes on the number of Harvard students traveling and studying abroad.
Last year, a total of 1,678 Harvard undergraduates went abroad to study, one-fourth of the student body. That is 2 1/2 times as many as the 667 who went abroad six years earlier.
“This is a remarkable turnaround from an era, not very long ago, when undergraduates were discouraged from going abroad because it would take them away from precious Harvard Square for some moment of their undergraduate experience,’’ Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said in an interview in her Harvard Yard office before leaving for China last week.
I know what she means, but the sarcasm of the quote—”precious Harvard Square”—seems unnecessary. (Particularly from someone who, before she was president, wasn’t known for traveling abroad much.)
Moreover, the argument against traveling abroad in the past was not a reluctance to leave “precious Harvard Square,” but the university’s conviction that few schools in other countries were as rigorous as Harvard, and so the college administration took a skeptical view of much foreign study.
I don’t know whether the quality of education elsewhere has improved, or if that simply matters less now than the value of a foreign experience.
For their part, many students were more concerned about interrupting their extracurriculars (sports, the Crimson, whatever) than they were about leaving Au Bon Pain.
In any case, this seems like a generally positive trend.
27 Responses
3/18/2010 4:15 pm
A big reason for the recent boom is on p. 2:
‘In 2008, financier David Rockefeller pledged $100 million for Harvard to broaden its international reach, and he has given an additional $2 million a year in grants for students to go abroad for “significant international experiences.’’’
This is a pretty sloppy article, which obscures the fact that most of the 667 to 1678 increase is for newly funded summer study–and expansion of Harvard summer programs connected to that increase. All of which is great.
Very few undergraduates relatively speaking studied or study in Harvard Square in the summers.
I would think the numbers for term-time study abroad have remained pretty flat, and I myself think if you have just eight semesters in College, spending them in College is not necessarily a bad thing — though there are some good term-time programs, in my field, e.g. the Intercollegiate Center for Classical studies in Rome, run out of Duke.
3/18/2010 4:22 pm
a positive trend it is but Harvard and other universities would do well to think through what is a valuable foreign experience. Tourism is a good thing in general, in that in can give students some exposure to other parts of the world, but not all tourism counts as an academic experience. And not all academic experiences abroad add much value to what students could do at home.
For instance, many places now have ’study abroad’ programs where students of american universities spend time with their peers, their professors, in remote enclaves of their universities, studying the very same things they would have studied at home.
Perhaps Harvard could set out to set some standards about how to truly educate through study abroad. That assumes of course that those in charge of those programs understand these distinctions.
3/18/2010 5:04 pm
Professor Thomas, perhaps your knowledge of what study abroad can do in the classic is limited? The Intercollegiate center for classical studies in Rome is of course an excellent example of what is possible.
Have you spent any time looking at what other Universities offer? Notre Dame, for example?
http://classics.nd.edu/undergraduates/study-abroad/
3/18/2010 5:08 pm
Helenic Studies at Princeton abroad
http://www.princeton.edu/hellenic/study-abroad/study-in-greece/
3/18/2010 5:51 pm
5:04,
The Notre Dame site mentions the one in Rome I already mentioned. It is run not by ND, by Duke, and Harvard, exactly like ND, is part of the consortium that permits students to apply. Same for College Year in Athens. Those are the two main THROUGH YEAR programs.
5:08,
The Princeton site (useful, thanks!) gathers various summer programs, including Harvard’s,
http://www.summer.harvard.edu/2010/programs/abroad/olympia/,
to which a number of our students, and presumably Princeton’s, are going this summer.
Princeton got a big endowment a few years ago that funds their students in Hellenic studies — in Princeton, Harvard, and other summer programs. Funding is the issue
I was actually trying to make a different point, namely that academic study abroad is not necessarily a better or richer intellectual experience, not that there aren’t programs (mostly summer) out there.
3/18/2010 7:21 pm
education is a lifelong pursuit.
3/18/2010 7:32 pm
what is a better or richer intellectual experience would depend on what experiences students have had or would otherwise have, would it not?
For your most travelled students, or from those who come from down under, perhaps a little study abroad will add little. But how about those students who do not own a passport? Not that owning a passport is a necessity to run for Congress these days, or for President for that matter.
Have you not had any students Professor Thomas who would benefit from a certain je ne sais quoi, shall we say, from a little worldly exposure?
3/18/2010 7:56 pm
I was riding on the Mayflower
When I thought I spied some land
I yelled for Captain Arab
I have yuh understand
Who came running to the deck
Said, “Boys, forget the whale
Look on over yonder
Cut the engines
Change the sail
Haul on the bowline”
We sang that melody
Like all tough sailors do
When they are far away at sea
R.A. Z.
(recognized by Princeton, never by Harvard though spent some time in the coffee shops in the square)
3/18/2010 8:01 pm
any relation to the Welsh poet perfessor? Bob.
3/18/2010 8:38 pm
http://www.aarome.org/
Run by Richard’s cousin, Adele Chatfield-Taylor.
3/18/2010 9:35 pm
Hmm, where to start? R.A. Z easiest. As I’ve noted before, I’ve been putting him up for one for 10 years or so. St. Andrews also gave him one in 2004, in connection with which here he giving a look at Classicist/Vice Chancellor Kenneth Dover, who died last week.In a soldier’s stance I aimed my hand / At the mongrel dogs who teach?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/7400324/Sir-Kenneth-Dover.html
Roma, AAR is mostly scholars and grad students, though “mature undergraduates” can apply again just for their summer program.
“Mature” says a lot; i.e. we don’t want undergrads who will spend the summer in Irish pubs and throw up in our nice palazzo (it is nice) — which they can do in any city in the US, but in Rome long before they’re 21.
7:32, “is not necessarily” I think I said. Of course many students gain a great deal from study abroad, and if you go by Harvard’s Boylston Hall 221 you will see a big poster on my office door with info about applying to the above-mentioned ICCS. We also have a number doing archaeological digs. When Chair of my dept. I actually started up a student travel and research fund. Moreover, one of my daughters did a semester in Madrid, the other one in Cape Town. So yes, I’m all for it much of the time, but am also against a knee-jerk assumption that it is mind-expanding in all cases/places/programs.
I suspect most students agree, and again, my point was that the study abroad increases in the Globe article mostly reflect summer activity, which is great, as it is great that David Rockefeller has provided such generous support.
3/18/2010 10:14 pm
fitting that the oldest scottish university would honor him in music…
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.
3/18/2010 10:18 pm
This old town too long
And it seems like I’ve got to travel on
And it seems like I’ve got to travel on.
3/18/2010 11:14 pm
More importantly, how do you feel about this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL67lMDNzp0
3/18/2010 11:33 pm
The hair! The hair!
3/19/2010 7:03 am
Because RT began this series of comments, the emphasis seems to have been mainly on programs where English is spoken. But in my view, the very best kind of junior year abroad program is one where students have to speak a modern foreign language. Immersion in the language and exposure to the culture of the foreign country can make a huge difference.
3/19/2010 7:07 am
I agree with Professor Ryan. Much can be gained by spending an extended period abroad to learn a foreign language, especially if the student must communicate not with peers from her home institution who all speak english, but from peers from the host country, or from peers from different countries learning that language. But this would require extended periods of study abroad –a semester at least– as well as education in institutions in that host country. Not many of the study abroad ‘experiences’ that Harvard provides fit that description. Has anyone ever tested the foreign language proficiency acquired by Harvard undergrads who study foreign languages? and how many of them do?
3/19/2010 7:16 am
The Globe article uses the wrong metrics ‘number of students who travel’. The use of these inadequate metrics suggests a very thin understanding of what foreign study is supposed to accomplish.
What is of most interest is what do students gain from study abroad, and especially, what do they gain that they could not have gained if they had not studied abroad. These are the questions Professors Thomas and Ryan are addressing.
There are obvious potential gains. Imagine, for instance, taking a course on american foreign policy in the Middle East in a university in that region while spending a semester in residence there. Very different from the course one could take at Harvard. Or imagine spending a semester at a public health school in South Africa studying that government’s approach to the AIDs epidemic with faculty and classmates who live in that society and who are engaged with those public health institutions.
Unfortunately, the present rules at Harvard prevent students from being able to take those kinds of courses. Harvard does not recognize most foreign university as ‘peer institutions’. As a result, it shortchanges its students providing them an ‘experience abroad’, where anything counts, and much of it is not more than tourism with a thin academic veneer.
Perhaps the problem is that many of these programs are designed and managed not by faculty –surprise, surprise– but by staff whose understanding of the disciplines, and of what can be gained by in depth study abroad, is limited. As a result, Professors like Richard Thomas, remain skeptical of the value of sending Harvard students abroad. And, in Harvard’s context, he is absolutely correct to remain skeptical.
Perhaps Harvard is not the place to go if one wants to study abroad. Princeton, Notre Dame, Georgetown or Yale might be better options.
Too bad the Globe article did not engage issues in this level of depth. Perhaps the deep conversations take place elsewhere at Harvard.
3/19/2010 7:30 am
While it is technically possible, in theory, for Harvard students to take a semester abroad, the process is not without complications:
http://webdocs.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/ugrad_handbook/current/chapter2/study_abroad.html
and who is to advise students in sorting out those complications? or encourage them to study abroad? not Professors like RT or JR, but instead:
“It is important to begin the study abroad planning process early: first-year students are encouraged to begin thinking about how to incorporate this experience into their studies, and all students are encouraged to seek assistance from the Office of International Programs. Students should also consult with their concentration Head Tutor or Director of Undergraduate Studies, and their Resident Dean. ”
So Professor Thomas is probably correct when he asserts that most of the growth the Globe article talks about is not in semester study abroad, but in ’summer experiences’. But, who knows, perhaps Harvard students learn as much from a short trip abroad as others do from serious study in academic institutions. Has anyone checked?
3/19/2010 7:33 am
Does a trip to Epcot count?
3/19/2010 7:41 am
What is possible:
http://www.princeton.edu/oip/home/
3/19/2010 8:16 am
RT et al: You are correct that the vast majority of Harvard undergrads studying abroad do so in the summer, but there are still a couple hundred students every year who study abroad during the fall or spring terms. That in itself is an enormous increase from when I was in college. At that time, as I recall, one needed to petition the Ad Board for permission to study abroad, which only a handful of students did in any given year. (Bill Kirby recently described the 1990s state of affairs to the Crimson, not inaccurately, as practically criminalizing study abroad.) There may still be hoops to jump through, but they are nothing compared to what there used to be. And the accompanying cultural shift — the University now actually promotes the idea of studying abroad — has also made a difference, even if the biggest impact, as you rightly point out, has been new summer programs.
3/19/2010 8:55 am
Yes Joe, things have changed in the decade since you graduated. The real question is at what pace and how does it compare to the way things have changed at other institutions.
Have you looked recently at the number of Harvard graduates who have been hired in multinational firms? by the state department? by the CIA? relative to, say, Georgetown graduates?
Harvard needs serious benchmarks to measure progress in this area. And serious benchmarks need academic leaders who are thoughtful about defining what progress means.
The front page article in the times has an article on Hillary’s role, it reads:
“shows just how far Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have come since the bitter spring of 2008 when he sniped that her foreign-policy credentials consisted of sipping tea with world leaders, and she scoffed that his consisted of living in Indonesia when he was 10.”
This is not the job marked graduates will enter in 2015 or 2020.
3/19/2010 8:58 am
Quite right, Judith, on the foreign language issue. My Madrid daughter, who did regular courses with Spanish students, is now in a Spanish language and lit. PhD program, and I would imagine the vast majority of modern language majors do, and should do, serious study abroad.
complications and Joe Levy:
I am in fact Director of Undergraduate Studies so do advise, and encourage, our students to study abroad in the programs I have identified above.
I was also DUS in the 80’s and JL is quite right: Harvard has become MUCH more supportive of study abroad. Btw there SHOULD be hoops to jump through in terms of validating programs/local institutions. There are a lot of scams out there, no doubt created in response to blather about the need to live in our new, globalized environment, etc. etc..
This one, for instance, run out of the “University of New Haven”, looks pretty dubious:
http://www.gowithcea.com/programs/destinations.html
7:41:
I don’t see that the Princeton site is that distinct from Harvard’s:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~oip/
Again, I’m for spending one or even two of the eight semesters for study abroad in term time where/if it makes sense intellectually, and in the summer time pretty much across the board — again in legit programs if we are accepting credit.
3/19/2010 9:20 am
Top chinese universities have very serious study abroad programs that Harvard could learn from. Curiously, they have partnerships with many top american universities, but not Harvard.
http://www.studyabroad-china.net/index.html
Harvard’s China Center in Shanghai has no links to any of those Universities. It is very much a Harvard enclave in Shanghai. The student study abroad programs in China need serious improvement and faculty direction.
3/19/2010 10:10 am
Actually, complications, I am Director of Undergraduate Studies, and as such actively encourage students who are interested in doing so to apply to appropriate programs (mentioned above). I was also DUS in the 80s and OIP, or what passed for it then, and Harvard’s attitude in general, are world’s apart as JL 96 says.
Judith is right on the modern foreign language majors, most of whom do, and should do, study abroad, as my Madrid study abroad daughter did, taking classes with Spanish, not US students — which speaks to China’s poiont
3/19/2010 6:40 pm
I have spent several years as Director of Undergraduate Studies, and so I’ve done quite a bit of advising about study abroad. The (mostly older) term “Head Tutor” is confusing: it’s the same thing as a departmental Director of Undergraduate Studies and is almost always a professor.