Faculty Forum Papers
March 1981 - The Challenge of Change
By
Jack Van de Water
Director of International Education
March 12, 1981
The inauguration of Ronald Reagan at the very moment the
hostages were released was the perfect combination to produce
a feeling of transition and a mood of change in our country.
There is now a sense of national effort to regain America's
self-confidence in its role as a leader in the world, the
strong defender of democracy. This mood of change gives
decision-makers in both state and federal government this
opportunity to shift priorities and re-allocate resources.
We are now in a critical period. The decisions of the next
few months will have a strong impact on the future. We will
see many changes.
The challenge of change is to recognize what the future holds
in regard to fundamental social needs and values. This is the
problem. The changes we are seeing reflect the growing preoccupation
with national defense, military power, and short-term U.S. self-interest.
Our government leaders, reflecting the mood of the country, intend to
restore the confidence of Americans that the U.S. can play a dominant
role in the world. Unfortunately the world has changed. The U.S.
has a new role in the world but many of us seem not to have noticed.
International interdependence is a present reality, not an abstract
theory. Our national self-sufficiency is now only an historical fact.
In this new world, our future well-being depends upon cooperation with
and support from other nations with different traditions, cultures,
governments, and languages with which we are nearly completely unfamiliar.
The links between the U.S. and the rest of the world are extensive and
growing rapidly. These links affect our lives and livelihoods. Our
economy is now tightly linked to the international marketplace. About
one dollar in every three in farm sales comes from exports; one manufacturing
job in six depends upon exports. A decision made in Saudi Arabia or Nigeria
raises the cost of a gallon of gas in Gladstone or Newport. A good harvest
in Brazil lowers the price of a cup of coffee in Corvallis. A drought in
the U.S.S.R. enables farmers in Eastern Oregon to buy new combines, but
it may also force Salem shoppers to pay more for a loaf of bread. The
Bantam Book you read, the Keebler chocolate chip cookie you nibble, even
the Alka Seltzer tablet you take are the products of foreign-owned companies.
In a similar trend, U.S. investment has reached the point where one-fourth of
each new dollar invested goes abroad.
It is this interdependence that is the real challenge of change. Our state
and national leaders must recognize that what is needed is to educate Americans
to their new role in the world and to make decisions based on the realities of
interdependence. What we need for the future is the strength of knowing how to
understand and to benefit from the changes producing interdependence.
Why do we so often ignore our new role in the world? The difficulty for
Americans is that much of the rest of the world has developed within a
framework of dependence upon other countries; whereas we, for the first
time in our national existence, have become dependent on others. We
are now, like most other societies throughout history, directly affected
by important events and decisions over which we have little or no control.
The dominance of this country is giving way to a shared partnership with
other countries and cultures. This change is difficult for most of us to accept.
In higher education we have entered a critical period. President Reagan
has given a lower priority to federal support for education. Budget cuts
have been proposed that would reduce U.S. support for developing countries
and international agencies. At the state and local level a similar situation
exists. A small but growing number of educators are voicing support for a
higher priority to be given to international education. (International
education is used in the broad sense and refers to the process of acquiring
knowledge of the existence, diversity and interrelationship of the countries
and cultures of the world). At the same time, these voices are not as loud
as those calling for a reduction of financial support to education at all levels.
Proponents of international education are left with the curious result of
decreasing budgets and declining programs when it is obvious that America's
economic and cultural dependence on others is increasing. The Global 2000
International Studies Report have stated the case for a higher priority for
international education, but remain in urgent need of improving the international
dimension of the education of our citizens. We need more support for
understanding other countries and cultures. Overall, the response of the
American educational system to the challenge of preparing citizens for
effective coping in an interdependent world is woefully inadequate.
The major educational need is in the classroom. We must develop the
international dimension of each course and each discipline. We do not
need new courses as much as we need new attitudes. We need encouragement
to change existing courses and curricular offerings, to infuse an international
component into the subject matter, whether it be in engineering, education,
military science or sociology.
The decline in language learning is a serious problem. It affects
our ability
to remedy the balance of payments problem. It has implications for our national
security. Consider our potential for misunderstanding the Soviets of the Chinese
or the Iranians. Consider the fact that there are more teachers of English in the
U.S.S.R. than there are students of Russian in the entire United States. It is
going to be far more difficult for America to survive and compete in a world where
nations are increasingly dependent on one another if we cannot communicate with our
neighbors in their own language and cultural contexts.
Oregonians should give careful attention to the decisions of the next
few months,
both in Washington, D.C. and in Salem. Where we must strengthen our country is
in the classroom where we should educate students to minimize the present
difficulties we have relating to, understanding, and working with people of
other nations. The present mood of change must include support for developing
our national strength by improving our ability to understand interdependence
and its implications. Those countries with citizens able to learn and understand
the traditions of others, who are able to converse in the language of their
associates, will have a competitive advantage in every aspect of global affairs.
Are our schools and colleges preparing these citizens?
