Education Report Cites Fletcher for "Exceptional Work" in Intl. Affairs

Believing that "international education is part of the solution to world strife," a national association of international educators has honored The Fletcher School at Tufts University and nine other schools in a 118-page report for doing "exceptional work" in international affairs. Duke University, Middlebury College and the University of Pittsburgh are among the winners.

Called "Internationalizing the Campus: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities," the report was issued on Ap. 16 by NAFSA [International Association of International Educators], which represents more than 8,600 professionals in 50 states and 80 countries. The report was done in partnership with the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J. and the Educational Resources Branch [ECA/A/S/A] of the U.S. Department of State's Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau.

The criteria for selection was "not only sound educational practice, but the value of society that derives from effective international education. "The Fletcher School excels in its highly-developed, multidisciplinary program for training future leaders in international affairs," wrote the report's author Christopher Connell, a former education writer for the Associated Press.

One very practical reason for the NAFSA report involves the aftershocks of 9/11, which have featured new visa restrictions by the U.S. government and reported instances of discrimination and harassment against university students from the Middle East.

Indeed, the report noted pointedly: "It is unfortunate, we believe, that internationally mobile students who seek to study in the United States today face multiple impediments to getting here and being able to study here successfully….Under such circumstances students and institutions worldwide suffer in the short-term."

Founded during the Depression and against a wave of rampant isolationism, Tufts University established The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1933 as the nation's first graduate school devoted exclusively to international affairs.

According to the report, the "famed" school today is educating more than 400 students, most pursuing master's degrees in international affairs. The average age is 27, and more than two in five are from countries other than the United States. Forty are enrolled in an ambitious new global master's program taught primarily over Web, and 90 others are pursing PhDs.

Dean Bosworth, a career diplomat who was formerly the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, the Philippines and Morocco, was quoted as saying: "Yesterday's mission is today's mission" The report went on to say: "That mission has become all the more essential in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when terror attacks brought home to millions of Americans the futility of ignoring the world beyond U.S. borders."

The report singled out Fletcher's "innovative" one-year Global Master of Arts Program, an internet and residence-based program which has been written up in The Financial Times; and the school's Center for Human Rights & Conflict Resolution, which provides training and conducts research on topics of pressing interest to human rights activists and peacemakers.

Some Fletcher graduates go into diplomacy or work for international organizations; others pursue careers in journalism, academia, the military, environmental affairs and, increasingly, the private sector, including investment banking, trade and consulting.

Referring to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- diplomat, senator and scholar -- as Fletcher's "most illustrious graduate," the report noted that he received his bachelor's from Tufts before going on to get his Master's and PhD. degrees from Fletcher.

In terms of the school's larger mission, the report again quoted Dean Bosworth: "The broader challenge for us as a country is to develop a public that is much more aware of what is going on in the world outside of our own borders. As September 11 has demonstrated, we are not invulnerable to what happens around us."