 "Photo: Andy Ceballos")
UCF has about 1,500 international students, and when they graduate, UCF President John Hitt would like to give them more than just a diploma.
"Wouldn't it be great, and this is by no means original with me, ... but wouldn't it be great if every graduate in engineering or science got with his or her diploma a green card?" Hitt said during a panel discussion on March 28. "That might not be very popular in the countries that they come from … but we do make it very difficult for these students to stay and when I look at the amount of investment that they have made and that we have made in areas like optics and photonics where there are great employment prospects, I wish we could do that. I wish every one of them got a green card."
"The Voices of Smart Power" panel, put on by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition at the Sonesta Hotel in Downtown Orlando, included not just Hitt, but also Rollins College President Dr. Lewis Duncan, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick and Caterpillar, Inc.'s Washington Director for Government Affairs William C. Lane.
While foreign policy as a whole was the general focus of the panel, education and issues future leaders will have to deal with were major topics of discussion.
Hitt had other ideas in addition to his thoughts on green cards.
"I keep coming back to the notion that if we understand how to improve the educational systems around the world, we can do an awful lot in educating future leadership," said Hitt, who has seen firsthand other countries' desire for American education.
"One great opportunity I had as the Soviet Union was unwinding, I was called upon to help start an American university in Bulgaria and I saw how intensely the people of that small country wanted and needed American-style education," Hitt said. "People are very eager to learn more about the United States. Many want to come here to study."
The other members of the panel agreed that coming to the U.S. for an education was quite popular with foreigners, but study-abroad programs for Americans could use some changes.
Lane, who is also the co-president of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, said the trend is that more students are getting involved in foreign studies, but they're still traveling to the same locations every year.
"If given the choice between Rome and Sao Paulo, they'd probably pick Rome. If given the choice between Bangkok and Paris, they're probably going to pick Paris," Lane said. "What we're finding is that while more students are doing the overseas experience, they're not necessarily going to the markets of tomorrow and that's our challenge is to try and figure out how to make that happen."
Rollins has been making efforts to meet that challenge for the past few years by promoting international trips among faculty.
"We take it seriously and it does in fact improve the education of all of our students," Duncan said regarding his faculty's trips abroad. "We need to understand the peoples and the countries with which we will partner and cooperate and also those with whom we will compete."
Rollins faculty have taken more than a couple hundred trips abroad combined.
"I think quite literally it makes a world of difference," said Duncan, who acknowledged that faculty trips abroad are not the only way to internationalize the campus. "Whether it's by international students who are on our campuses and enrich the education of all of the students who are there or whether it's through study abroad and learning to look at the world through the eyes of a different country…that bears a lot on how we see ourselves."
Sometimes it's up to the international students themselves to teach those around them. Marcela Calchei, a former post-graduate education student from Moldova, was one of UCF's international students for a year.
"I think that international students educate not only students, but some of the instructors," Calchei said. "They were very curious about my experience and I loved that."
While Calchei said her experience at UCF was a good one, she was not completely satisfied with the attitude that some students had toward their education.
"I was reading every single article that I was given and every single page that I was asked to read … eventually I figured out that not everybody was doing the same thing. I was a little bit disappointed by that," Calchei said. "Education, for international students, is the priority. You take everything that UCF is offering you and UCF is offering a lot."
Calchei said she thought a lot of international students would applaud Hitt's sentiments toward green cards, but that it ultimately wouldn't work.
"I don't think that's possible because if you introduce that can you imagine how many students will come to the U.S.? You would not be able to absorb all of them," Calchei said.
Regarding the desire for American-style education that Hitt said he experienced, Calchei said that schools in Moldova are trying to implement the American style of testing and grading, but that resources are limited.
"These days I get a laptop and a projector, something that I'm grateful for in my classes," said Calchei. "Appreciate what you have."