Keynote Lecture
Conference at the Steinhardt School of Education
New York University, 2 March 2006
Allan Goodman

This conference is focused on the 21st century, but it is important to begin by thinking about those of us trained in the 20th. We probably amount to 99% of all who now hold the Ph.D. and whose classes you attend. Does knowledge transcend time the same way it does borders? Are their verities that are still as firmly true today as they were before the Berlin Wall fell? And, of course, is anything about globalization all that new? After all, there was a considerable period in history when all the leading scholars agreed that the world was flat.

Few of us give up and it takes an awful lot to defeat popular, albeit it wrong, theories in any field. On my watch at Georgetown, I only had one professor request that he stop teaching because the world he knew – that of the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe – had ceased to exist and, he said, he was too old to learn about the new countries and systems that replaced it. Having won the award for the most outstanding teacher at the school many times, he knew his business. And so I respected his wishes, but knew he still had an awful lot to teach me. And some of that is what I want to share tonight.

I do not teach now because I have the privilege of heading the oldest international exchange organization in the world and the largest in the United States. Some of your colleagues and graduates now work with me. Professor Hosay is a good source of prospective recruits and your president serves on our Board of Trustees. Our very active Chairman Emeritus, Dr. Henry Kaufman, serves on his board. I am often asked if I miss teaching. I do. And sometimes I am asked what I would now teach if I went back.

Of course in my field, the easy thing to say is “a seminar on U.S. foreign policy” or one exploring what is wrong with the way intelligence agencies function. But that course is given almost daily in the newspapers, and the cost of a subscription is far less than tuition. So while there is much that people with my background and experience have to say about America’s role and challenges in the world, hearing us may not necessarily break new ground. And if any of us really knew how to fix things, we would have done so by now.

In thinking about my remarks this evening, I also realized that this is really the wrong question to answer. What all of us in education need to grapple with is what we should want you to learn today and how well that will prepare you for tomorrow.

Now it is at this point that some audiences stir uncomfortably, because putting the question that way begs the larger question of what should be in a core curriculum (and whether or not it is desirable or even feasible). But this is generally not the province of presidents or even deans for that matter. This is an important point for all to remember. But especially for the faculty because the contents of the curriculum is usually left up to them. When the graduate students here receive their diplomas, many will become faculty members. Much will be on your minds about making your way. But I hope that from time to time you will also engage in the debate about what should be learned.

Those of us engaged in international education tend to forget how little most college-educated Americans know about the world. When I took my Ph.D. at Harvard, I was required to demonstrate proficiency in two languages. I chose French as my “first” and, fortunately was allowed to use statistics as my second. Let me speak for a moment now in the language in which I am strongest.

87-70-65-20-1.

Eighty-seven is the percent of college-educated adults in America today who were, according to a recent National Geographic Society survey, unable to locate Iraq on a map. Seventy is the percentage, according to a Gallup poll, that cannot name the current president of Russia or correctly identify the job that a person named Kofi Annan holds. Sixty-five percent cannot find France or the U.K. on a map; and despite the fact that the President of the United States is visiting India this week, fifty-six percent can’t locate the world’s largest democracy on a map either.

If you think you can beat these numbers, I urge you to take the Institute’s International “IQ” test. Here are some of the questions, and since more Americans will watch the Oscars this weekend than the evening news, I have linked them to some of the nominees.

1. George Clooney’s “Syriana” is a political thriller set in an unnamed oil-producing Arabian Gulf country. Can you name the five countries that supply the largest amount of oil to the United States?
   
   
2. The diplomat-husband (Ralph Fiennes) in “The Constant Gardner” is assigned to what country? Can you find it on a map?
   
   
3. What was the name of the principal terrorist organization active when the events depicted in “Munich” took place and with whom Black September was affiliated? Who was its leader?
   
   
4. Before Edward R. Murrow worked for CBS in the events depicted in “Good Night and Good Luck”, where did he work? And what agency of government was he appointed to head when he left CBS?
   
   
5. “Why We Fight” contains video of the warning of President Eisenhower about how our foreign involvements often entangle the U.S. in military conflicts. What other U.S. president warned about the same thing? What else did he and Eisenhower have in common?
   
   
6. “Memoirs of a Geisha” is filmed in the ancient capital of Japan. What makes this city unique in the history of World War II?
   
   
7. “The New World” is about the first immigrants to America. How many immigrants does the U.S. currently get on a daily basis?
   
   
8. “Downfall” is about the last days of Hitler. What two elected heads of state today deny that the Holocaust happened? What two European political party leaders have expressed similar doubts?
   
   
9. Academy award winners Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Katherine Hepburn, and Sir Laurence Olivier all practice (or did) the exercise method of Pilates. Why was it developed?
   
   
10. “The Brothers Grimm” featured in the movie wrote what was to become the most popular book ever published in Germany. How were the brothers’ political views received?
    
    

Answers:

1. Canada is the leading supplier of oil to the US, followed by Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
   
   
2. Kenya. It is in between Uganda and Somalia.
   
   
3. PLO. Arafat.
   
   
4. Institute of International Education (IIE) where he led the Emergency Committee to rescue displaced scholars before World War Two; United States Information Agency (USIA).
   
   
5. George Washington; they were both Commanding Generals before being elected as President.
   
   
6. Kyoto was never bombed, in order to preserve the cultural heritage.
   
   
7. 1 every 31 seconds; the number is probably twice that if illegal immigrants are included.
   
   
8. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (President of Iran) and Mahmoud Abbas (President of the Palestinian National Authority). Jean-Marie Le Pen (France’s Front National) and Georg Haider (Austria’s Freedom Party).
   
   
9. Interned as an “enemy alien” in England during WWI, Joseph Pilates developed his famous exercises, using the springs of hospital beds, to strengthen fellow internees and rehabilitate victims of the 1918 Flu pandemic.
   
   
10. The brothers were expelled from the country in 1837 and lost their jobs because they objected to the breach of the constitution by the King of Hanover who sought to provide security and peace at the expense of civil rights.
    
    

So how did you do?

Unfortunately, for many students today, “international” is not yet a part of their college education and it very much needs to be. Only twenty percent of American citizens hold a passport (and half of that number are either over 60 years of age or under 5). And according to our “Open Doors” research, just about one percent of U.S. citizens are studying abroad in any given year. More Americans believe they have been abducted by aliens, in fact, than have ever studied abroad.

So what should students learn?

If I were that kind of president, I would require all students to learn a second language (and demonstrate proficiency in it). Full stop.

Since this would immediately be grounds for my ouster by the French Department, I would, of course, make provisions for this requirement to be met by study abroad.

America has rarely taken foreign language learning seriously. Today, less than seven percent of college students take any language courses; in fact, the highest the proportion has ever been was about sixteen percent in the wake of Sputnik. Of the more than 2 million graduates in 2004, just 17 earned degrees in Arabic and 206 in Chinese. Over one million of our high school students do study French and 40,000 take Mandarin. But almost none of these students are likely to continue their courses in college.

Studying and knowing another’s language opens many intellectual doors. It makes the point, most importantly, that people elsewhere process information and think about it differently. This is of tremendous significance for my field, since it helps us understand better why people reach conclusions with which we do not agree and how deeply they may feel about them. Wars usually happen neither by design nor accident, but because a nation is led by people who reach very different conclusions about a set of observable facts. And most of the time, those conclusions are knowable but not in English.

When the world was flat the last time, St. Augustine observed that to try to become educated without travel was like trying to read a book without ever turning a page. Our vision at the Institute is that one day, international will be a part of the way we define what it means to be educated. This great School and University – which hosts the fifth largest number of international students in the United States and is ranked number one among all doctoral/research institutions for study abroad -- is helping lead the way. Thank you very much for having me here this evening to start your symposium.