UHRAN, John J.
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN, jju@cse.nd.edu
Abstract: For U.S. engineering students, continuing studies overseas has been a difficult challenge both for them and for their U.S. institutions. Although this has been less so in recent years, a number of different kinds of opportunities have been developed by schools and corporations all over the world. After reviewing some of the overall problems and a little history, this paper explores briefly, the unique way in which the University of Notre Dame has provided an international experience for all of its students and in particular, its engineering students. Specifically, two unique opportunities will be discussed as examples.
Keywords: international, education
For an individual, education is the surest way to broaden opportunities so success can be attained. For countries, the change from illiteracy to literacy of the population is the key to rising from a third world to a second world country or higher. Broadening educational opportunities will generally allow for entry into the family of fully developed nations. For several centuries, many countries have provided a meaningful university education for its best students. In some instances, these were technical universities, but most were oriented towards the arts. Unfortunately, these small number of people were usually those of the monied class.
In the United States, universities evolved in a different way beginning in the late 19th century. Universities became more accessible to more of its citizens than had ever occurred before and certainly more so than most countries around the globe. This trend accelerated after World War II. In the late 1940's and early 1950's, the United States, having quickly recovered from the war while many other countries were actually still rebuilding, expanded university education to include the masses. To this day , no country has made higher education so accessible to so many of its citizens as the United States.
Without going into the many reasons that often accompany radical change, English became a fundamentally important language in the world community after World War II, particularly in commerce and often times in education. The flow of foreign students into the United States accelerated considerably, first at the graduate level and in recent years, even at the high school and undergraduate levels. Coupled with this language commonalty, was a general broadening of world commerce. While attributed to many things, it is clear that the ability to communicate swiftly and almost instantaneously has tended to accelerate this process at an ever increasing rate. In the last decade, corporations in the United States have reached out to foreign lands all over the globe as how raw materials, manufacturing and even sales have become world wide. Similarly, foreign corporations have become entwined in the United States.
While there have always been intellectuals and students who chose to live and/or study abroad, the numbers were few and scattered. Slowly over the years, the process of education in a foreign land became more formalized. Universities in the United States began exchanges with foreign universities and/or simply sent students abroad in an unstructured program. A variety of formats now exist today. While the numbers of foreign students studying in the United States has continued to rise, it has been rising at a slower rate, but the numbers of U.S. students studying in foreign lands has been ever increasing (Table 1).
Foreign students studying in the United States were always put into the position of having to learn English language to study here. Studying of the English language became a priority in many foreign lands and became the second language of choice in most instances. In commerce, this has been particularly important. Foreign language studies in the United States, however, have never been a high priority. Since there are many languages for schools to offer, only several became common, such as French, German, Russian and Spanish. In addition, studying only one of these severely limits opportunities. Thus, it was difficult for a large number of U.S. students to study in foreign lands if classes were taught in the native language and normal conversations could not be carried on. The real opportunities were very limited.
Fortunately, for U.S. students, this has begun to change as well in recent years, as language studies have become more of a priority, foreign study has become simpler, many countries have begun to teach classes in English especially at the University level, and the variety of opportunities has expanded.
Many kinds of international experiences are now available to students, from the United States, particularly undergraduates, who want to study in foreign lands. Special programs have been developed for those what want to travel during the summer, and at the same time take a course(s) related to culture, art, language, or history. New opportunities have been provided in the way of internships from three (3) months to a year. However, because of restrictions in each country for work permits, the latter is often times difficult. Other programs require that a student simply take a year off from their home institution and participate in a special program. Students do have the opportunities to enrich their language skills in these other lands, and at the same time, to study courses that would not be available in their own institution and to essentially immerse themselves into a foreign culture. Whether any of these programs allow overseas courses to count for university requirements is not always possible and depends on prior arrangements. As such, foreign study experience can potentially prevent a student from graduating in a normal 4 year cycle. Many students from the United States participate in these programs and likewise, many students from foreign lands come here on a temporary basis. All in all, foreign studies has become a big business. For purposes of this discussion, we exclude graduate programs which are special in many ways.
About twenty-five years ago, Notre Dame launched several foreign study programs for its students in the humanities. These programs began in Angers, France and Innsbruck, Austria and required the student to spend a full year abroad. To be eligible to participate, it was necessary to pass a language test since all of the courses at these two locations were taught in the native language. These Centers were staffed by faculty and a resident director from Notre Dame and were only for students at the University. Usually, one or two adjunct professors were brought in to teach some of the five courses required. Over time, these programs have proliferated extending to Rome for Architecture students and several other countries such as Spain, Greece, Mexico, Russia and Chile, that also required speaking the native language.
About 15 years ago, a comprehensive Learning Center was established in London. At this location, a facility was rented by the University in downtown London and allowed students from a number of University units to participate. This included students from law, science, liberal arts and the business school. For a variety of reasons, the College of Engineering did not participate. Through the initiative of one faculty member, a summer London program was started for engineering students 12 years ago. This was the first initiative at Notre Dame that allowed engineering students to actually participate in an overseas program as an engineering student. Since the College of Engineering has a cooperative arrangement with the College of Arts and Letters for dual degrees, that is a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of science degree, it has always been possible for engineering students, in that program, to study humanities one of the five years at one of the foreign centers. It was never possible for students to do a four year engineering program alone and still do foreign study during the academic year. The London Summer Program was the first time that engineering students could actually spend some period of time overseas in a Notre Dame program while taking two courses and experiencing the culture of another nation. Since no language study is required for an engineering degree, London was a logical choice.
Reverend Edward Malloy, as president of the University has been, a very big supporter of foreign study for Notre Dame students. With this incentive, and as a result of a University-wide study in 1990, the Colloquy 2000, there has been a stronger push to get as many students as possible to have a foreign study experience and for at least one semester, during the eight, a student is expected to be spending at Notre Dame. Thus, the University most recently opened new Centers for study; one in Freemantle Australia; the other in Dublin, Ireland and has provided for a significant expansion in London. With such Centers worldwide, Notre Dame now has one of the largest percentage of students attending classes in other countries.
Notre Dame programs are unique. They are setup only for Notre Dame students with staffing and direction by regular Notre Dame faculty and the assistance of local adjuncts. Students from other Universities are not admitted into the Notre Dame programs and by the same token, we do not encourage our students to take semesters or years off for studying in other institution's programs. Notre Dame is a residential campus with approximately 83% of the student body living on campus for the entire four years. It is also important that students who participate in foreign programs be able to come back to campus and to do this seamlessly, both in their academic studies and in their social and living arrangements. There are no additional charges assessed for the semester or year the student is away. Included is a round trip ticket for the student to return home after the assignment.
There are probably two reasons why engineering students, in general, have not been at the forefront of overseas studies. I believe this is true in other institutions as well as Notre Dame. Some of it has to do with the culture of engineering students. Their interest in mathematics and science is often times coupled with a narrow view of where they will be going and what they will be doing and tends to preclude having an overseas assignments. It is clear that, this attitude is changing both in terms of the way students view things and also the way engineering has begun to function. We now exist in a global economy and engineering and technology is an increasingly important part of that economy wherever it might be. Thus, having an overseas experience is a definite plus in any body's resume and also helps students learn how to deal with people from other cultures.
Secondly, and more importantly, it has always been difficult to have an engineering student go overseas and return to campus seamlessly. Engineering courses tend to be very sequenced, building first on the basic sciences, then the engineering sciences and then finally, the discipline dependent courses. In order to have a large variety of engineering students in the overseas program similar to that on campus, would require enormous resources that normally are not available, because only 8 - 12% of engineering students have shown an interest, even today. Thus, a seamless flow in a student's four year program proves to be a daunting task.
One could argue, at the places mentioned, that fine universities already exist that offer engineering programs to their students. Indeed, this is true. The problem comes when one tries to setup a seamless schedule. First of all, often times the semesters are off by any where from three to eight weeks in terms of start and termination In many cases, there are no semesters, but year-long courses. And more to the point, often times the match of courses between those in a foreign institution and those in the United States are quite different.
This latter issue raises many questions. All engineering programs in the United States are basically accredited by a single accreditation agency, ABET. Because of the requirements of trying to meet the standards of this accreditation process, it becomes very difficult when courses must be compared with those of our colleagues overseas. Their goals are simply different from ours. Some countries run engineering programs for five years with the graduate being somewhere between a bachelor degree and a master's degree. All of these problems are clearly difficult to deal with in a meaningful way. Thus, many institutions in the past have backed away from what seems to be a daunting problem. These characteristics just mentioned have not been solved to this date and most likely will not be solved in the near future unless engineering programs in Europe, Asia and the Americas conform and/or are accredited by the same accreditation agency. Such possibilities are discussed from time to time. This does not resolve the immediate problem of how to have engineering students from the United States experience an international experience.
Given the parameters of the Notre Dame Centers as they exist today and the difficulties associated with engineering programs overseas as just mentioned, Notre Dame developed a different solution, by tailoring specific locations to specific groups of students. The London Program for engineering students was set up four years ago. It began accepting students from our aerospace, mechanical and civil programs all of which have some common courses in the fifth semester. It was determined that a total of two engineering courses would be offered in the London Program and that our students would share their humanities courses with all of the other students from the other colleges. In addition, some rearrangement of two or three courses in each of the programs was required between the second and fourth year. In doing this, we were able to create a seamless transition of these groups of students from one semester to the next. (See Table 2) All other issues related to housing, eating etc., were taken care of by the University. This, of course, requires a student to prepare for this experience very carefully, or else it is not possible to complete the degree in four years. Students are very much aware of this and are constantly advised about the details. This program has grown rapidly and has been received very favorably. (See Table 3) Now engineering students can experience the culture of another nation and in addition, get to meet and know their fellow students in other colleges much better than they might while on campus.
Since there are nine programs in the College of Engineering, having only three of these involved in an overseas program was not adequate and pressures were exerted to resolve this problem. In the last two years, three additional programs have been added. The electrical, computer engineering, and computer science programs elected to participate in the London program. Doing so, allowed more efficiencies in terms of teaching since at least one of the engineering required courses for all of these students is common and now one more faculty member from a different department spends a semester in London.
At the same time, the program for the humanities and business students, in Australia, was succeeding beyond any one's hope. It was decided two year's ago to setup an environmentally oriented program in Australia for Geology students, or any environmentally oriented student in the College of Engineering, or the College of Science. This program was offered for the first time in the fall, 1998 and had 25 students. This, too, has a faculty member from the College of Engineering participate each fall.
As a result, most of the students in the College of Engineering, except chemical engineers can now go to some Notre Dame foreign studies program, and still complete their bachelor of science degree in four years. Our experience, to-date, has been positive from the perspective of students and faculty. Table4 also indicates the participation of students in our programs, over the last five years, to give an indication of their popularity and growth.
Two years ago, the University made a large commitment to setup an Irish Studies Program. This program had two components: 1) A very strong presence on the home campus; and 2) A cooperative program in Dublin, Ireland. Arranging to rent Newman House on St. Stephen's Green in Dublin, the University proceeded to hire several well known Irish scholars, to share their time between the Dublin facility and the main campus, working with both undergraduates and graduates. Of interest here, is the overseas study for undergraduates. This program has grown very quickly to 35 students a semester. It is an unique program for Notre Dame in that the students are basically being integrated into either Trinity College or University College Dublin for most of their classes excluding several humanities classes which are taught by the Irish scholars and adjuncts. This program allows the students to actually take courses in a foreign university which has not been the case in the past. They are housed with Irish students. In addition, they might take classes at both of the universities, or only one, depending on their particular programs. It turns out that the Notre Dame Business School has an excellent match in the spring semester with the University College, Dublin. Thus the students can seamlessly fit into this program and complete a full semester without any difficulty.
Engineering courses are a different story and have proved to be very difficult because of the many reasons already mentioned previously. Even though Trinity, does list what appears to be semesters, the engineering college is getting away from this approach and going to full year courses.. University College-Dublin already has only full year courses for engineering. We have, however, begun to work closely with the two universities on a student by student basis to attempt to tailor a program to a particular student's needs. Due to the advantages of E-mail, the process has been much simplified than it might have been in the past and as each student comes along, we work to try to match the program in existence at UCD or Trinity with the particular program at Notre Dame. So far, we have sent one student to UCD in chemical engineering and the results so far are very satisfying. The University there has been extremely cooperative in working with us to solve all of the details and the student has been supplied with a mentor to help him through the process. We anticipate one additional student next year in chemical engineering and then the following year, this program should very likely grow to two or three students. The University is very supportive of this process and hopes that in the future, a modest number of engineering students will be able to work their way through this difficult situation.
It should be mentioned that one other difficulty has come about because of the culture of testing in the two countries. In the United States, university students , particularly engineers, are frequently tested throughout the duration of a course. There might be as many as three examinations during the semester plus a final exam with a number of homework assignments handed out and subsequently graded on a regular basis. Thus, at any point in time, the student has a fairly good idea of how they are doing in the course and can get a sense of what their grade might be. In Ireland and other European countries, it is neither common to give examinations during the year nor to grade and hand back homeworks, or laboratories. The student who is there now, has found this very difficult to deal with despite being advised of this situation many times. Thus it is clear that even thought a student might technically be a good fit for such a program, it might be psychologically unsuitable. Having the entire semester summed up in a single three hour exam is a binary decision that many United States students do not want to face. Then, of course, translating the grade into an equivalent letter grade at the home institution is equally daunting. Though this is a major problem, we believe that with proper advising and mentoring before and during the trip, the student should be able to handle these difficult situations.
Several difficulties do occur and need addressing. One is staffing. For many programs, it is difficult to find faculty on a rotating basis to staff these various study programs. It can mean putting a research project on hold or not being able to consult with graduate students or colleagues easily. For those faculty members with young children, other problems occur. By and large, the burden has fell mostly on older faculty whose families have left home or are old enough to maintain themselves. Even then, on an ongoing basis, staffing of these programs can be difficult and is an important consideration in setting it up in the way that Notre Dame has. Fortunately, in all the places mentioned, there are large universities with excellent engineering programs. Thus, faculty adjuncts can usually be hired. All of these programs in engineering have excellent university programs at the local site.
Student and faculty housing can also be difficult. In many places where large numbers of Notre Dame students are sent, residences are provided by the university by arrangement, as is the case in Dublin and Australia. In London, student and family housing is arranged by the University. In Monterrey, there are a variety of places, usually private houses, approved by the University. All residences are required to meet safety conditions. In many foreign universities, dormitories are much less of an issue than in the United States.
Foreign Study Programs are meant to be a cultural, social and intellectual experience in a totally different way than staying in the U. S. They are also meant to be fun, with time to think and set aside the normal routine, so that a true educational experience can happen. Thus, while our programs are demanding, they are organized in such a way as to allow other things to happen. To facilitate this process most of the Notre Dame programs have two, one week breaks, during each semester rather than the one which occurs on campus. This is to allow for time to collect thoughts and to travel. Some times excursions are planned during one of these two weeks. In Australia, it is not uncommon for a one week tour to be made through the Pacific Rim basin including Singapore, Malaysia, etc. Few students and faculty who have participated in these programs have complained about difficulties. While, there are always some displacements of one type or another, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. As dependencies between countries increase, this kind of arrangement will be more common place and by a larger number of people will participate. In the meantime, we work very hard to see to it that these experiences can be expanded to the extent possible and to allow for the maximum opportunity for each individual.
All of these in programs are enriching experiences for our students in terms of contact with foreign cultures and a better understanding of the world. In this context, one hopes that this will lead people to talk with each other more frequently and to help break down the barriers that tend to separate us. It is certainly hoped that this kind of exchange will lead to the broadening of each individual's culture rather than trying to become one world in language, religion or other aspects.
Table 1. Engineering Degrees Earned in the United States
|
Year |
Bachelors |
Masters |
Ph.D. |
|||
|
US |
Int'l |
US |
Int'l |
US |
Int'l |
|
|
1996-97 |
60074 |
5017 |
20366 |
10208 |
3605 |
3381 |
|
1995-96 |
60225 |
5042 |
21057 |
9955 |
3565 |
3253 |
|
1994-95 |
59856 |
4893 |
21538 |
10697 |
3371 |
3240 |
|
1993-94 |
60038 |
4908 |
21558 |
10385 |
3082 |
3376 |
|
1992-93 |
60397 |
4604 |
20982 |
10122 |
2892 |
3306 |
Table 2. Fifth Semester Curriculum for Mechanical Engineers
|
Notre Dame Campus |
Cr__ |
London Campus |
Cr. |
|
MATH 325: Differential Eqs. |
3 |
MATH 325: Differential Eqs. |
3 |
|
EE 222: Electrical Science |
3 |
ME 334: Fluid Mechanics |
3 |
|
ME 334: Fluid Mechanics |
3 |
Arts and Letters course+ |
3 |
|
ME 331: Mech of Solids Lab |
2 |
Arts and Letters course+ |
3 |
|
ME 339: Kin/Dyn. of Machines |
3 |
Arts and Letters course+ |
3 |
|
Arts and Letters course+ |
3 |
15 |
|
|
17 |
Table 3. Study Abroad by Notre Dame Engineers
|
Year |
London |
Fremantle |
Dublin |
Monterrey |
|
|
Su |
Fa |
Fa |
Fa/Sp |
Sp |
|
|
1994-95 |
24 |
- |
- |
- |
- |
|
1995-96 |
29 |
8+ |
- |
- |
- |
|
1996-97 |
21 |
15 |
- |
- |
2+ |
|
1997-98 |
24 |
13 |
- |
- |
- |
|
1998-99 |
34 |
18 |
18 |
1+* |
1 |
|
1999-2000 |
24 |
33 |
17 |
1 |
NA |
+First Year of Program
*Requires a full year