The Forerunner Program
Faculty/Student Exchange Program
A PROJECT FOR SUNY-MEXICO STUDENT/FACULTY EXCHANGE.
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JORGE LUIS ROMEU
SUNY-CORTLAND.
Sept. 1st, 1996.
FAX:315-476-8994
Email:romeu@WEB.cortland.edu
Published in The Voice (UUP Monthly)
Issue of October 1996
This was the third consecutive year that I spend several
weeks in Mexico, driving through this rugged country pursuing a
dream: to establish a student/faculty exchange program. It all
started in May 1994, at the end of my Fulbright stage , when the
American cultural attache in Mexico City suggested that my task
was now to promote these experiences among others.
I approached UUP President Bill Scheuerman, who immediately
expressed his support and encouraged me to pursue it. To define
and refine ideas, I put together a "Menu": (See Appendix) of
exchange opportunities for SUNY and Mexican faculty. Reynold
Bloom, SUNY's Director of International Exchanges, liked the idea
and provided seed money for phone/faxing.
Bloom's minigrant also provided us with a substantial
recognition and our Campus Administrators started giving
attention to this project. Several meetings took place and I was
finally authorised to "explore" the interest and feasibility of
such exchanges with Mexico.
Meanwhile, through the Faculty Access to Computing
Technology Committee (FACT) we obtained three scholarships for
Mexican faculty to attend CIT96, a technology conference held at
SUNY Oswego. The US-Mexico Bilateral Commission selected
professors from Mexico City, Guadalajara and El Paso to attend
the meeting.
In return, these professors will seek that their respective
institutions invite some SUNY faculty to their events, under
similar scholarships. We expect this to become a stable exchange
program. In addition, three boxes of science textbooks,
collected from SUNY-Cortland faculty, were sent to our colleagues
in state universities of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. We were
getting, at last, some tangible results.
The project attracted the attention of the current Cultural
Attache in Mexico City. With the cooperation of the US
Information Service (USIS) office there, the attache organized
and attended a breakfast meeting at the University Club. During
this meeting the project was explained to administrators of about
a dozen institutions in Mexico City and surrounding states. The
project was subsequently presented to administrators in
Monterrey, Merida, Campeche, Carmen, Xalapa and Tampico, with the
help and cooperation of the US-Mexico (Fulbright) Bilateral
Committee and USIS offices Mexico.
The attention the project is receiving stems from several
obvious advantages of this project. First, developing bicultural
and bilingual science and engineering professionals, who can
easily work in both countries, is crucial to the growth of NAFTA,
the North American Free Trade Agreement.
This project also strengthens the general relationship
between two neighboring countries that share several thousand
miles of border and several million Mexican immigrants and their
descendants.
But there is a particular advantage for SUNY in such an
exchange. A substantial population of our students is of
hispanic origin and these students lack role models. If SUNY and
Mexico can enter into an exchange, then Hispanic students here
will see that their Mexican peers, who speak the same language
and have the same brown skin, can compete very well with our
students here. And this will provide them with the best role
model that they can have.
In addition, a faculty exchange program can achieve two
other important goals. It can provide SUNY teaching faculty an
interesting alternative to Sabbaticals and other leaves. There
are many Mexican teaching institutions that would be happy to
exchange/receive teachers for mutual enrichment. Our research
faculty will find many first-rate Mexican research institutions,
also willing to have them working there. This program will
facilitate, encourage and foster such exchanges.
But secondly and most important, we conducted a limited
survey during the CIT96 meeting this spring. Results indicated
how that faculty without a foreign experience tend to be more
reluctant to accept a course taken in Mexico as counting for an
equivalent one here.
One way to show these faculties that the quality of foreign
courses is high is to have them work with Mexican professionals,
via an exchange program. Only when SUNY faculty accepts courses
taken in Mexico, as more than "fee electives", will we be able to
exchange students on a serious and stable program.
Since this conception also reflects negatively on our
Hispanic faculty and students, this exchange project will also
help fight prejudice and discrimination on our campuses.
However, the current budget crisis means there is little
support for this program from the administration. Our
recommendation to the administration made this spring -that SUNY
Cortland enroll in the already existing RAMP (Regional
Accreditation and Mobility Program)- was not considered. RAMP is
a Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE)
program where universities from Canada, Mexico and the U.S.
exchange students in engineering, business and environment so
they can study abroad and be recognized at home. RAMP has since
lost funding and is no longer accepting new institutions in the
program.
Another drawback: our proposed exchange project is for a
science and engineering students and faculty; since most of our
four year colleges do not offer engineering, administrators may
not see a direct advantage to their Campuses. Under such
circumstances and the current SUNY budget constraints, it is not
unusual that they find it difficult to justify release time nor
to provide funds to support this exchange project.
On the other hand, it is unreasonable to expect that an
individual faculty member will indefinitely provide free time and
pay all the expenses to develop this project.
Therefore, we must consider the implications of the status
quo. None of the many mexican universities interviewed has a
particular interest in establishing exchanges with a single SUNY
campus -but rather with the entire SUNY system. This is
reasonable since it is difficult to find enough qualified
students and faculties -or the financial resources- on a single
campus, to support a stable exchange program.
From our informal survey of 21 SUNY campuses we found an
average of eight students on each campus -more than 150 overall-
who would be interested and able to participate in such an
exchange. And, given the variety of institutions in SUNY and in
Mexico, such a SUNY-wide approach would seem the most logical and
appropriate solution.
If this program is to continue and grow, it must have the
support of both the SUNY system administration and UUP. Both can
write the grants, obtain funds and/or provide support to continue
with this effort.
And, if successful, our students and our faculty will
benefit tremendously; benefit differently, perhaps. But benefit
in many important ways.