A Challenge to Undergraduate Educators

The cold war appears to be over; its most vivid symbol--the Berlin Wall-is being torn down, its pieces falling prey to capitalism. The Vietnam syndrome of avoiding military conflicts at almost all costs has dissipated, if not disappeared. Franco-German enmity has been replaced by the promises of 1992. Japan has caught up with the Soviet Union in terms of gross national product. The United States has turned into the world's greatest debtor nation, and Japan has replaced it as the country providing the most foreign aid to third countries. Most political scientists would agree that we are living through the most dramatic systemic change since the end of World War II. But much of this drama and the import of these events is lost on American undergraduates. Lacking a sense of what came before, they cannot be expected to recognize the significance of the events of the past twelve months. In countless national, international, and regional studies, our undergraduates have been found to be ignorant of basic facts of history, geography, and current affairs. See, e.g., Strength Through Wisdom, 1979; Commission on International Education, American Council of Education, n.d.; Lurie, 1981; Southern Growth Policies Board, n.d.; Advisory Council on International Education of The Southern Governors' Association, 1986; National Governors' Association, 1989. It is clear from these reports that American undergraduates need a better sense of their position in history and in the world community. To develop concrete measures to meet this challenge, 20 political scientists joined 27 academic colleagues from across the country (see Appendix 1) in a conference sponsored by The Atlantic Council of the United States at the Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, on September 15-17, 1989. The American Political Science Association joined a number of other professional associations in identifying members to join the Atlantic Council's Academic Associates in developing a strategy to ad ress the continued neglect of international education. This challenge was forcefully presented to them by a Joint Working Group of

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• How to Make the Most of Your Summer Study Abroad Teaching Experience

  Open Access•Cameron G Thies•PS Political Science & Politics•2005

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