Higher Education Brings the World Together.
I just participated in the most fascinating meeting I've been in since I started this higher ed gig. A group of international university administrators visited MSU as part of a tour around US colleges and universities to find out how things work here. There were people from Nigeria, Oman, Qutar, Syria, and two women from Saudia Arabia, both wearing very fashionable hijabs. The younger Saudi woman had devastating eyes, like that famous picture of the Afghan woman, Sharbat Gula, on the cover of National Geographic from years ago. (I'm jumping ahead, but at the end of the meeting, I was standing next to the younger Saudi woman, and realized that the tag on her hijab was showing. It was from The Gap, 100% cotton, made in China. Ah, globalization.)
There were two interpreters with the group (even though many of them spoke fairly good English) and that took a little getting used to, because you'd start talking and then this other dude sitting two seats down from you would start talking, and you'd think to yourself, "Um, hello? I'm trying to talk here..." Or like Will Ferrell, there were several times when I thought, "I can't think while you're talking." But they had a pretty sweet setup, where the interpreter talked into a tiny little microphone that was connected to a headphone bus, and the two gentlemen who needed it had earpieces that looked like little bluetooth phones. Except with wires back to the headphone bus. That's right, we got all United Nations up in here!
Most of the questions were about finances, faculty development, programs for international student assistance, requirements for international student admission, and other fairly logistical topics. It appears that the issues we have in America concerning higher education are shared throughout the world, which is simultaneously reassuring and disheartening. Can't anybody figure out how to do this well? But the entire thing was fascinating for me.
And we took several group photos following the roundtable discussion, which I will probably never get to see, since none of the cameras belonged to anyone from MSU.
Good Times!
There were two interpreters with the group (even though many of them spoke fairly good English) and that took a little getting used to, because you'd start talking and then this other dude sitting two seats down from you would start talking, and you'd think to yourself, "Um, hello? I'm trying to talk here..." Or like Will Ferrell, there were several times when I thought, "I can't think while you're talking." But they had a pretty sweet setup, where the interpreter talked into a tiny little microphone that was connected to a headphone bus, and the two gentlemen who needed it had earpieces that looked like little bluetooth phones. Except with wires back to the headphone bus. That's right, we got all United Nations up in here!
Most of the questions were about finances, faculty development, programs for international student assistance, requirements for international student admission, and other fairly logistical topics. It appears that the issues we have in America concerning higher education are shared throughout the world, which is simultaneously reassuring and disheartening. Can't anybody figure out how to do this well? But the entire thing was fascinating for me.
And we took several group photos following the roundtable discussion, which I will probably never get to see, since none of the cameras belonged to anyone from MSU.
Good Times!