Remarks at the First European Conference of the Forum on Education Abroad
UCD, 5 December 2012
Ladies and Gentlemen. Thank you for that warm welcome.
Go raibh maith agaibh as an bhfáilte chroíúil sin. Cuirim fáilte agus fiche romhaibh go Baile Átha Cliath agus guím gach rath oraibh i dtaca leis an gcéad Chomhdháil Eorpach den Fhóram ar an Oideachas Thar Lear.
[I wish our visitors a very warm welcome to Dublin as I wish you all a very successful first European Conference of the Forum on Education Abroad.]
I congratulate everyone involved in organising this event, including the Forum and its staff led by President and CEO Brian Whalen, the Conference Committee, the co-sponsors from six other EU countries, and the host institution, University College Dublin.
You have come to Ireland and to Europe to broadly consider the theme “Reinventing the European Experience: Culture, Politics and Diversity in U.S. Education Abroad”. It is a fascinating theme, and I know that you have a busy schedule addressing topics such as the development of an ethical code to govern learning abroad programmes, ways to maximise a young learners’ integration within their host culture and programmes to support learners abroad who experience mental health difficulties. As a world leader in setting quality standards for studying abroad, your deliberations are of great interest to all in the higher education sector.
I am delighted that the Forum has chosen to hold its very first conference outside the United States here in Ireland. It is not just a reflection of the continuing popularity of Ireland as a destination for US students, but a testament to the centuries old and strong relationship between our two countries.
The United States has always been one of the major destinations for Irish immigrants. During the first of two major periods of emigration in the 18th century over 250,000 left Ireland for North America and most arrived in New York or Philadelphia. The greatest part were Protestants of Scottish descent and they are the origins of the over 3.5 million Americans who claim Scots Irish ancestry.
The second and major wave of emigration is associated with the Great Irish Famine. Between 1846 and 1900 approximately 2, 873,000 predominately Catholic Irish, emigrated to America. Today over 36 million (11.9%) US residents claim Irish ancestry.
The bond between us is thus rooted in history. It is a relationship which is constantly renewed by a host of circular migrations and interactions encompassing people-to-people exchange, education, culture, the arts, trade, business and tourism. The American faculty and students who come to Ireland form a crucial part of that complex, modern, mutually beneficial relationship.
I spent many years as an academic lecturing in sociology and human rights and over those years at NUI Galway I had the opportunity and pleasure of teaching many young American students.
Europe remains the most popular destination for US students, with over half of all US study abroad students, choosing to study in a European country in 2010, and we are delighted that Ireland continues to be a top ten destination for American study abroad students. There are admirably strong institutional and professional connections which underpin the professional relationship, not to mention the much wider context of our shared political, cultural, economic and human relationships.
For young people, the key issue is authenticity. Their decisions will not only take account of history, but to the future and their lives in a rapidly changing world. Studying in Europe, is this relevant to them at a time of such immense global change?
There is an obvious great strength in our shared experiences, and these can build on the differing traditions which make the experience of study abroad all the more exciting, and stimulating for a young student. There have been attempts at defining the difference. The Pew Research Centre summarised the ‘the American –Western European Values Gap’ which emerged in its Spring 2011 survey of Global Attitudes in the following terms:
“Most notably, Americans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans and are more socially conservative with respect to homosexuality.”
In addition to the challenge of learning within a new cultural context, and it is a real challenge, studying in Europe offers an unparalleled opportunity in the field of political education.European Union integration and enlargement has been the most ambitious experiment in international cooperation, democratization and peace that has existed in modern times, acknowledged in the recent Nobel Peace Prize conferred on the Union recently. Studying this process, studying within this context, offers the student a tremendous opportunity to learn from and contribute to the advancement of humanity, international development and cooperation to develop an awareness of its necessity of lodging an ethical consciousness in the globalization process.
Today, as Europe and the United States continue to struggle with ongoing recession it is all the more important that our students and future leaders can critique, challenge and appreciate, economic and political policy initiatives that can strengthen, or undermine, global cohesion and progress.Studying in Europe also allows the student an opportunity to be enriched by Europe’s diversity, the interaction of inherited tradition with a technologically driven modernity, the overlapping, and collision of local, national, European and global identities and cultures, and the complex international political and economic dynamics that arise from these. These are themes which will define modern Europe, but which are also common to understanding our inter-connected and globalised world.
Preparing students to understand and thrive in this new world, and indeed to shape it, will be one of the key missions for modern education systems.
This is the changing global context in which students will seek to make decisions about where to study. US study abroad providers are faced with a wider choice of competing locations offering to support US students to develop their own skills and marketability for the global workforce.
In the midst of great technological and social change the relationship between America and Europe continues to be a vital one, and young Americans will continue to derive huge benefit from their time studying here. US students will find the space and time and opportunity in Ireland, and indeed across Europe, to broaden their life horizons and learning.
Here in Ireland we have always been known for the beauty of our landscape, for the friendliness of our people and for our culture of great writers, poets, artists, musicians and actors.
We are inclined to think of innovation in the cultural sense, for example, James Joyce, the innovator who revolutionised the English language from within. But innovation is a characteristic of Irish history across all endeavours. Ireland’s entrepreneurial culture is strong and the same creativity and imagination that is the hallmark of Irish culture is also driving exciting ground-breaking research in science and technology. Dublin, one of only five UNESCO Cities of Literature, is this year also the European City of Science, showing that the originality and ingenuity of the Irish mind are just as successful when turned towards the sciences as to the arts.
We are correctly proud of Shaw, Yeats, Becket and Heaney when nobel laureates in literature are mentioned. When Irish nobel laureates are ennumerated, Ernest Walton, born in Dungarvan and joint developer of the first particle accelerator that split the atom in 1931, is often overlooked. Perhaps that is because it is easier to appreciate a poem by Yeats than to condsider the disintegration of lithium; but William Rowan Hamilton in mathematics, Robert Boyle in Chemisty, astronomer Agnes Mary Clerke and John Tyndall in light physics are part of the Irish mind as are so many Irish scientists, technologists and innovators, so many of whom teach, research and work in the United States.
Creativity can have many manifestations – a poem or a painting but also a new business model, medical treatment or nano-plastic composite.
We have a tradition of education that goes back well over a thousand years to our ancient monasteries, and was continued by our missionaries who have played such a crucial role in educating millions of people around the world, including in the poorest corners of the earth.
Ireland now has the highest participation rate in higher education in the EU, and the second highest in the OECD. Ireland is now one of the top 20 research nations in the world, and a global leader in 18 disciplines, including first in the world in Molecular Genetics and Genomics.
Dublin itself is ranked number one in the world for human capital, a measure which includes the quality of our education, the entrepreneurial mindset of our people and the ease and openness of employing foreign nationals. The city is also ranked as one of the top ten cities in the world to be a student.
Overseas study changes how we perceive ourselves, allowing us to position our roles and our actions in a global context. In Europe, for example, perhaps no initiative has been more successful at encouraging a shared European outlook among young people than the Erasmus mobility programme. Study abroad allows young people to develop their natural energy, talent and creativity through intercultural experience. It encourages students to confront and challenge their cultural expectations, preconceived notions and received wisdom.
I want to commend you on the vital role which all of you in this room play in making study abroad such a successful and growing part of the American and European educational experiences.
I will conclude with some words associated with Leonardo Da Vinci, a forward-thinking genius in both the creative and the scientific fields. The phrase ‘ancora imparum’ is associated with Da Vinci. It means ‘I am still learning’. Da Vinci learned through curiosity, through study, through experimental creativity, through trial and error, through vision. I am heartened to see that the Forum on Education is following this lead – still learning, still curious and creative.
Tá súil agam go mbeidh toradh ar bhur gcuid oibre sa chúpla lá seo romhainn agus go mbeidh luach saothair le fáil agaibh as na buntáistí oideachasúla, sóisialta agus pearsanta a thiocfaidh i dtreo bhur ndaltaí dá bharr.
[I hope your work over the next few days is fruitful and that you will be rewarded with the educational, social and personal benefits that this brings to your students.]
Thank you.