May the future be orange!

I’ve heard professors at Berkeley talk about Europe and Asia; Germany and Japan are my Economics professor’s favorite ‘other countries’, but I have never heard anyone speak of internationalization. While that of course may simply be the result of the fact that I don’t get to speak enough people, I believe otherwise. It is my educated guess that (the concern for) internationalization is a very European idiosyncrasy.

This is not to say that American academics are unaware of the world outside of their country or of phenomena that we like to capture by the word ‘globalization’. What I’m saying is that their interest in these phenomena seems to be focused mainly on topics such as (economic) outsourcing and environmental issues, not on academic cooperation and mobility. Not because they do not care, but simply because they do not have to worry: America already attracts the most ambitious students and most highly regarded scholars.

While I find myself surprised, from time to time, when I hear people around me speak Norwegian / Farsi / Serbo-Croatian or Cantonese and while I’m still not used to the sight of 80 Asians in my (Economics) class of 100, I seem to be the only one who notices. Both for Berkeley students and professors, international diversity seems to be nothing novel. Furthermore, when the public relations office boasts “Berkeley’s rich diversity” or when the Chancellor declares Berkeley’s “mission to support diversity, equity and inclusion” (preferably when funding cuts are looming), they are referring to ethnic minorities within the U.S. rather than to foreign students and scholars.

For Dutch higher education, however, internationalization is still mainly unclaimed territory. While our students are increasingly spending a semester abroad and while our researchers are relatively successful in obtaining European research grants (we did great in the first round of the ERC Starting Grand competition) and even though we offer the highest number of English programmes in Europe (excluding the UK), we do a poor job of attracting foreign students: the percentage of foreign students of the total student population in the Netherlands is a mere 5.6% compared to the European average of 7.2% and top scores of 9.2% in Sweden and 11,5% in Germany (Nuffic, Mobility Key Figures 2007). A part of the explanation we will find in our strict immigration policies and relatively high tuition fees (especially for non-Europeans), a part we must perhaps look for in our academic culture.

I will conclude with my own experiences of studying abroad. What, I think, stands out is the ease by which I have settled here in Berkeley. Not through the help of some ‘internationalization’ agency or the warm guidance of a ‘foreign student councilor’, but simply because everyone seems to accept my presence as a natural fact. One of my clearest memories is that of a mother crying, long and intense, as she was struggling to say goodbye to her son, who was about to start his studies here at Berkeley. An American mother, I should add, of an American student. It was this sight which made me realize that I am not alone here. There are very few – very few – local students here; undergraduate and graduate students alike come to study at Berkeley from every corner of the country. And while a Dutch student at the University of Amsterdam might still spend most of his time with his Amersfoort friends, or even travel to Middelburg over the weekend to visit her parents (and do her laundry), there is no way a Berkeley student would still hang out with his friends in Wisconsin, Madison, Miami, Florida or New York City, New York. The logical consequence: it is less of a challenge to ‘build up a new life’ when everyone around you is doing the same thing.

I believe the opposite is true of the Netherlands. If my account holds ground, it explains the complexity of getting more international students to the Netherlands, for socio-cultural factors underlying our countries’ unattractiveness to foreign students are unlikely to have a quick and easy solution. Let this not lead to negativity. Just like it was the ambition and persistence of one professor at the University of Amsterdam that led to the start of an exchange with UC Berkeley’s Sociology department, the ambition and effort of good people, when well guided by their institutions, can bring us much more. Add to that the great examples (‘best practices’) that we find in our country’s Art Schools and let us conclude that ‘the future is bright’ indeed and, with some effort, it will be orange.