Education As Ambassador

By Malcolm, Wade

Once a year, dozens of people gather for banquets in Mumbai, India, and Taipei, Taiwan, to reminisce about their days spent in, of all places, the Electric City.

Their connection to Northeastern Pennsylvania? The University of Scranton.

Jim Goonan, an assistant dean who heads international recruitment for the university, tries to schedule a few of these get-togethers during his annual sweep through eastern and southern Asia.

More than 20 years after he first proposed increasing international recruitment, the university now has a significant alumni presence on the other side of the world, most of them graduates of the Jesuit institution’s graduate programs.

The University of Scranton has been among the local leaders in pursuing international education. Following a decline because of tougher immigration policy after 9/11, international education nation-wide has steadily risen back to pre-9/11 highs, according to the Institute of International Education.

And now some educational policy groups are calling for the next president to promote international education as part of their plans to improve America’s “global image.”

Faculty and administrators in Northeastern Pennsylvania agree that education makes for great diplomacy.

“They live among us, and then they go home, and they are sort of ambassadors for us,” Goonan says. “One of the best exports we have in the United States is higher education.”

In fact, international students contribute about $13.5 million annually to the country’s economy, according to the Institute of International Education. An annual report by that organization found that 582,984 international students studied in American in 2006-07, up 3.2 percent from the previous academic year.

The University of Scranton, a small private school, counts 120 international students from 25 different countries among its student body of nearly 5,000. If they enjoy their experience, they will probably give a positive impression of America to their friends and family back home. Students Coonan recruited to Scranton years ago have introduced him to new prospective students during his Asia visits and have volunteered as free translators.

“We think it enriches our community to have people from all different cultures studying here,” Goonan says. “We get to learn a lot from them, and they learn from us as well.”

While the University of Scranton is the most aggressive in seeking international students, other local schools provide ample study-abroad opportunity for domestic students.

Misericordia University has two unusual programs this year in its education and business departments.

This fall, Dr John Sumansky, recently named a Fulbright scholar, will travel to Macedonia, where he will teach a entrepreneurial research course to a class there, while simultaneously instructing students at the Back Mountain college over the Internet.

Toward the end of the semester the four students at Misericordia University will travel to Macedonia to join Sumansky’s other students The two groups will compare the problems entrepreneurs encounter in Luzern County versus those in the small Balkan state north of Greece.

Sumansky hopes it will give students a more global perspective.

“The old ways of thinking about where we lit in the world have changed,” Sumansky contends. “We’re part of an international community, not just part of Luzerne County Pa.”

Sister Patricia McCann, RSM, has tried to give some of her education students a similarly broad experience. For about the past 10, McCann, a Misericordia professor, has developed a program for education majors to do some of their student teaching in Ireland. One Irish school the university works with is quite socioeconomically diverse with a high percentage of African immigrants.

One former student told McCann that getting out of her comfort zone like that helped after taking her first full-time job at an inner-city school.

“I think they get out of their little towns and townships and experience a whole new level of diversity,” she says.

The same Institute of International Education report found 224,000 American students studied abroad during 2005-2006, an 8.5 percent increase from the previous year.

Michael Simons, the University of Scranton’s study abroad coordinator, points out that number is still a small percentage of all college students in the United States. But Simons does his part to expand studying abroad at the university, speaking to every incoming freshman class about its benefits.

“For students to leave and be in a situation where they’re the minority, it gives them a level of functioning they can’t gain if they stayed at the university’ he says. “How in the world can you be effective in what you do if you can’t participate in a global society?”

Copyright Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal Aug 2008

(c) 2008 Northeast Pennsylvania Business Journal. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.