ASU Research E-Magazine: Learning in the USA

More than 450,000 foreign students currently are enrolled in American universities. Many of these students graduate and go home to become leaders in their countries.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? No, not Sydney Poitier. This particular guest list includes the president of the Philippines, the King of Nepal, the leader of Greece, and the former prime minister of New Zealand.

No, this isn’t a guest list for the next black tie White House dinner. The list includes world leaders educated in America. Each of these individuals spent time and shared many meals with American families when they lived, worked, and studied at universities in the United States.

In fact, according to Mark Rentz, a list of American-educated world leaders would read like an international Who’s Who.

“The list of presidents, past and present, would extend to many pages,” says Rentz, associate director of the American Language and Culture Program at Arizona State University. “The names of novelists and newsmakers, justices and journalists, generals and geneticists, artists and architects, bankers and bureaucrats, educators and editors, would overflow volumes of biographical editions,” Rentz wrote in an article that described the daunting task of documenting U.S.-educated world leaders.

The article, “Diplomats In Our Backyard: How We Treat Foreign Students On Our Campuses Can Have Lasting Consequences For Our Country,” appeared in the Feb. 16, 1987 edition of Newsweek magazine. Rentz sent copies to many of the people mentioned in that article. To his surprise, many responded in writing.

“One of the first letters I received was from the King of Nepal,” Rentz recalls. “That letter was quite interesting. It began: ‘I have been commanded by the King of Nepal to thank you for your letter and kind article mentioning our King.’”

Rentz learned early on that many American universities do not track their international graduates. He decided to initiate his own tracking system. Following publication of the Newsweek article, Rentz wrote and mailed hundreds of letters to American universities and foreign embassies. He requested each institution to send him the names of their most illustrious alumni. Two years and 3,000 names later, Rentz began a letter-writing campaign to these American-educated international leaders and scholars.

“I was writing at a time when the Earth was shaking,” Rentz says. The Berlin Wall was crashing down and democracy was finally finding its way into Eastern Europe.

Rentz attempted to get letters to communist leaders in Hungary and Bulgaria who had attended American universities. “When their governments collapsed, I couldn’t find any diplomatic way to locate them,” he says.

Since that time, Rentz has spent a lot of time interviewing and corresponding with international leaders and students. Hundreds have answered his written requests to recount their experiences as students in the United States. Their answers come in letter and essay form. Rentz wants to compile their essays into a book he tentatively has titled, “Educating the World: American Colleges and Universities and Their Influence Abroad.”

“Many of the people who wanted to write essays and submit to an interview were the ones who had enjoyed good experiences in the United States,” Rentz explains. “In fact, this has been one of the difficult aspects of writing the book. Think about it. If you had a pretty crummy experience here, and you’re now a world leader, why jeopardize relations with the U.S. by saying so?” he asks.

According to the Institute for International Education, the United States enrolls more international students than any other nation in the world; about one third of the 1.2 million foreign students attending universities today. For the 1993-1994 academic year, the United States enrolled a record 449,750 international students. In comparison, France enrolled about 137,000 foreign students; Germany, 107,000; and Britain, 80,000.

Closer to home, Arizona’s three major universities are home to 7,741 foreign students. Of that total, 2,487 attend ASU.

Rentz says that 125 different countries are represented on the ASU campus. Amazingly, ASU has an international community of more than 5,000 people during any given year, if you count visiting scholars, immigrating, nonimmigrating, and English language students. However, only about 5 to 10 percent of the international students at ASU actually develop meaningful relationships with their American counterparts.

“It can be very difficult for them. Most American students don’t even realize the internationals are here,” Rentz says.

Experience can be everything. Rentz thinks that educating scores of world leaders is important. But even more important is how these international students are treated as individuals while they are living and studying here in America. In his Newsweek article, Rentz wrote that how we treat foreign students on our campuses today can have long lasting consequences for diplomatic relations with their countries in the future.

“In a sense, my initiative here at ASU is an attempt to prepare international students for the United States, to prepare them for the American educational experience, and to prepare them for social linguistic situations,” Rentz explains. ASU’s American Language and Culture Program is part of the College of Extended Education. The program is geared to assist international students to cope with American culture, slang, idioms, and academic language.

Rentz has a wish list for his international students. First, he would love to install a system to better track international students over time. He also would like to see the establishment of an international house at ASU. The house would be a gathering place for international events, discussions, films, and exchange of culture.

“An ASU international house would be a center of great activity. As a meeting place, it could have political and historical significance as people meet other people and learn about the world in which they live,” Rentz says.

The first wish has been partially realized. Last fall, Rentz traveled to Japan to create a leadership club comprising Japanese ASU alumni. “We held two receptions, one in Tokyo, the other in Osaka. Loyalty to their alma mater was very high,” Rentz says.

The meetings attracted Japanese ASU alums from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

“The oldest graduate was a woman who studied at ASU in 1952,” Rentz says. “She was one of only two international students on campus at that time. She recalled her time in Arizona as one of the most important experiences in her life.”

The Japanese woman’s response is similar to many of the replies Rentz received from dozens of world leaders who studied in the United States.

“I asked each leader what they remembered most from their student days,” he says. “Very few of the world leaders I interviewed or received essays from singled out their academic experience. All acknowledged how useful their American education has been to them. But what really stands out, what they remember most fondly, are all the relationships and experiences they had with people. These friendships left the greatest impression.”

“For me, the response is a powerful indicator of how important it is to treat people well, to treat them as you yourself would like to be treated. The ramifications can be important,” Rentz adds. “Many of these international students graduate and go home to become leaders in their countries. The positive and negative experiences they have while studying in the United States might actually influence future international relations.”—Rebecca L. Jahn