On June 18th, IIE published a very optimistic
press release announcing delegation of senior US higher education
representatives to Iran. The delegation
met with their peers from thirteen Iranian universities in an attempt to
increase academic cooperation between our two countries. The visit, the first delegation of this size
in many years, included visits to several of Iran’s top universities and
research institutes, as well as meetings with Iranian government
representatives from the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. As a result of the visit, IIE has announced a
new “IIE Iran Higher Education Initiative” aimed at reopening educational and
scientific dialogue between the US and Iran.
The initiative already has several next steps planned: “bi-national
conference calls, a white paper on opportunities for developing university
partnerships and understanding the regulations that control the establishment
of these relationships (to be published in July), workshops for university
administrators, and activities aimed at increasing exchanges of students and
faculty members. In the future, the
delegation members hope to engage in such activities as double degree programs,
exchange programs for faculty and students, joint workshops, and study programs
to the US for Iranian PhD students. The
delegation identified the major issue preventing achievement of these goals as
a lack of institutional frameworks that match both sides’ priorities, however,
they hope that after the June nuclear agreement there will be an opportunity to
negotiate new or revive old MOUs between the two countries’ universities and
colleges.
As someone who took three years of Farsi as an undergrad and
would have happily studied abroad in Iran had an opportunity been available to
me, I am incredibly excited by this news.
This opening of relations could lead to great opportunity for cultural diplomacy,
global competence and citizenship education, and assessment of the effects of
international education on national security and diplomacy. With a growing number of issues that affect
both of our countries, including ISIS, water management, climate change, fossil
fuel dependence, and food safety, it is essential that we repair our relations
with Iran. The cultural diplomacy
provided by the new student exchanges the Initiative has suggested could be a
great start at mending our relationship.
As IIE points out, according to their 2014 Open Doors report almost
10,200 Iranian students studied at US universities in 2013/14, compared to zero
US students studying in Iran. They then
go on to note that while on the delegations visit, they experienced “…enormous
good will towards the United States, especially in the education space…” Could this be a result of Iranian study
abroad programs to the US having a positive effect on the students’ sense of
global citizenship? And if so, would
creating study abroad programs for US students in Iran have a similar effect on
their feeling towards Iranians? I am
admittedly biased, but I am optimistic that the effects of such programs would
be positive for our two countries’ relationship, and I think that at the very
least is worth studying. In Nel Noddings’
introduction to Educating Citizens for Global Awareness, she discusses the
possibility of using global citizenship education as “Educating for Peace”,
which given our countries’ contentious recent history is essential, I believe. Perhaps students could be prepared for
exchanges with curriculum that educates for peace rather than focuses on the US’
and Iran’s conflicting views. For
example, Noddings suggests that “Math teachers can ask students to trace the
figures on casualties for 20th-century wars” to help students learn
to “value the lives of all people, not just those of our own nation.” So maybe before studying abroad in Iran, US
students can take pre-departure orientation that includes a look at the number
of people murdered by SAVAK under the reign of the US-allied Shah, or the
number of casualties incurred by the Iranian people under the Iran-Iraq war. I believe that global citizenship education
could be used to great effect in promoting US-Iran relations through the work
of IIE’s new Iran Higher Education Initiative, and I am very excited to see
what it is capable of accomplishing in the coming months.
References:
Institute of International Education. (18 June, 2015). U.S. University Delegation to Iran Paves the
Way for Closer Higher Education Cooperation.
Retrieved from: http://www.iie.org/Who-We-Are/News-and-Events/Press-Center/Press-Releases/2015/2015-06-17-Iran-Higher-Education-Delegation
Noddings, Nel.
2005. Global Citizenship:
Promises and Problems. In N. Noddings
(Ed.), Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (pp. 1-21). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
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