WEBVTT 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:29.239 Today is June 19, 2014. We are conducting an interview for the Arizona 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:38.107 State University Retires Association video project. We are located today 00:00:38.140 --> 00:00:43.196 in the S. U. Community services building. I am leon Shell, former dean of 00:00:43.229 --> 00:00:49.366 students at A. S. U. The technical support staff today include josh 00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:56.667 macintosh operating the camera, roger carter audio David, schlafly, chair 00:00:56.700 --> 00:01:02.807 of the video history project and linda Vance coy Director. 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:08.607 Please introduce yourself uh stating your name and your position at A S. U. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:14.357 Hi leon, it's nice to see you again. I was in charge of international 00:01:14.390 --> 00:01:19.956 student programs at Arizona State University. I was actually born in 00:01:19.989 --> 00:01:25.467 Morocco, far away from here because my parents had a business there. When 00:01:25.500 --> 00:01:30.316 I was three years old we moved to Switzerland which is my home country and 00:01:30.349 --> 00:01:34.846 I have citizenship of both the United States and Switzerland. So the 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:40.536 language you speak in Switzerland, is that german or is that swiss? It's a 00:01:40.569 --> 00:01:48.046 complicated okay when we Robin we speak swiss german which is a dialect of 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:52.227 high german but it's not mutually understandable. The Germans don't 00:01:52.260 --> 00:01:57.286 understand us but we understand them and everything that's written is in 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:03.307 high german. Then I learned french and I learned spanish and english. I 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:08.517 thought that was a number five swiss. High german. No no no it's fine. I 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.987 learned spanish just for some reason even though italian is part of 00:02:12.020 --> 00:02:18.077 Switzerland english high german swiss german french and spanish. Yeah but 00:02:18.110 --> 00:02:22.867 you know people always ask me that you forget it, you have to speak it, 00:02:22.900 --> 00:02:27.707 you have to keep it 00:02:27.740 --> 00:02:33.906 from your schools there in Switzerland were good. 00:02:33.939 --> 00:02:39.587 Well see I don't know how they are now but from what I hear through family 00:02:39.620 --> 00:02:44.337 members who are teaching here, the situation here, as far as discipline is 00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:50.126 concerned is not very good. You did not there to oppose or you know, to 00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:54.927 challenge a teacher. We just kind of sat there and and listened. We were 00:02:54.960 --> 00:03:00.006 never challenging. The teacher were impolite or laughing or scribbling or 00:03:00.039 --> 00:03:07.247 sleeping or doing internet stuff. It was very strict, strict 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:13.527 academically well. But you know, that's maybe one of the disadvantages of 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:17.756 a strict education. Maybe you don't do that so much. Also academically 00:03:17.789 --> 00:03:22.106 you're right 00:03:22.139 --> 00:03:26.807 from a behavior part of it, you know, you couldn't be caught sleeping, 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:31.666 encouraged you to attack the teachers academically if you didn't agree 00:03:31.699 --> 00:03:34.946 with something else. 00:03:34.979 --> 00:03:40.196 But remember I only finished high school level in Switzerland but I think 00:03:40.229 --> 00:03:45.577 it actually haunts me still today. It is difficult for me, especially in a 00:03:45.610 --> 00:03:49.647 big group to challenge a person of authority because you know, we were 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:53.487 just not trained to do that. But I know you do that in England but you 00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:57.186 know, in the unit at the university level, you probably do it. I just was 00:03:57.219 --> 00:03:59.906 not there at the university. 00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:05.106 But when I finished my high school which was kind of 00:04:05.139 --> 00:04:11.057 a commercial program focusing on languages and commerce. So it's 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:14.867 Switzerland, a lot of people, even for example, the doctor of one of our 00:04:14.900 --> 00:04:19.156 presidents, we have seven presidents together. You know I mean seven 00:04:19.189 --> 00:04:24.137 people that form that council, they send their Children to other countries 00:04:24.170 --> 00:04:27.046 to perfect their language. So that's what I did. You know after I 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:32.746 graduated from high school I went to paris to perfect my french. I was a 00:04:32.779 --> 00:04:37.207 governors. You know I had to take care of the, of the families kids but I 00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:40.906 had my own cooked that cooked for me and I never had to clean or anything. 00:04:40.939 --> 00:04:44.507 But that was a program. I had to do something with those two kids all the 00:04:44.540 --> 00:04:49.137 time, you know, talk to them taking them to school every day taking them 00:04:49.170 --> 00:04:55.426 in the baby carriage all around Underneath the eye foot. Well, well I was 00:04:55.459 --> 00:05:00.106 just out of high school by 2021. 00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:04.986 You know it sounds like a strange thing to do. That's what you did in 00:05:05.019 --> 00:05:08.777 Switzerland. You went and learned the language. My sister went to London 00:05:08.810 --> 00:05:15.707 and she perfected her english also with the governors. 00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:20.937 Okay. I met while I was in Europe still I met my husband who was then a 00:05:20.970 --> 00:05:25.457 traveling student in europe. Eventually we got married, we landed up at U 00:05:25.490 --> 00:05:30.906 . C. L. A. Where I started studies in linguistics and he began a master's 00:05:30.939 --> 00:05:37.777 degree in anthropology. After about two years we moved to Australia where 00:05:37.810 --> 00:05:42.257 he pursued a doctoral program and I continue my master's degree, my 00:05:42.290 --> 00:05:48.106 bachelor's degree in linguistics. When we both were finished he had a job 00:05:48.139 --> 00:05:53.306 offer from Arizona State University and that's how both of us ended up in 00:05:53.339 --> 00:05:57.106 Tempe and Arizona State University. 00:05:57.139 --> 00:06:01.996 So then I then I involved in a master's degree program in english and 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:06.846 linguistics and when I finished that the position opened at A. S. U. 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:10.796 Actually I was just going to take a full time position at phoenix college. 00:06:10.829 --> 00:06:14.757 But then this came up and I just thought that would be so much more 00:06:14.790 --> 00:06:19.106 interesting. International. 00:06:19.139 --> 00:06:23.697 I interviewed you or was there a search on, Well you know things were very 00:06:23.730 --> 00:06:28.687 different then remember that was 1970s. Well see I was first there I 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:32.217 forgot about talking about that but I was actually first there as the 00:06:32.250 --> 00:06:37.317 assistant who who was 00:06:37.350 --> 00:06:44.906 the the supervisor there after one year went somewhere else. So my boss 00:06:44.939 --> 00:06:51.447 and some others, they offered me the position dr Swanson. Yes and I think 00:06:51.480 --> 00:06:54.837 he checked with some of my faculty members and so on that. You know when I 00:06:54.870 --> 00:06:59.937 did my masters degree and they just made it very simple because today you 00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:05.106 would never have that. You know it would be a big committee and so on. 00:07:05.139 --> 00:07:11.106 Yeah. 00:07:11.139 --> 00:07:16.697 Uh Suzanne, could you describe while at A. S. U. What your job was like 00:07:16.730 --> 00:07:21.457 when you came there and your job responsibilities? Well when I came to 00:07:21.490 --> 00:07:26.546 Arizona State University we had a very small student population just 200 00:07:26.579 --> 00:07:31.577 which as we will see later of course has changed dramatically. My 00:07:31.610 --> 00:07:37.496 responsibility basically. We're The establishment and administration of 00:07:37.529 --> 00:07:43.327 programs and procedures that met the needs of international students. That 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:51.360 was about 50%. The other 40% was roughly immigration administration. We 00:07:51.370 --> 00:07:56.127 spent a lot of time as you know on immigration because international 00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:01.416 students are totally regulated what they can do by immigration law. 00:08:01.449 --> 00:08:08.656 Certainly we provided statistics, publications workshops and general 00:08:08.689 --> 00:08:14.207 outreach to the campus community, the international community and also the 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:19.406 local community and newspapers about international programs because 00:08:19.439 --> 00:08:23.527 international programs are always kind of in the background of 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:29.366 institutions. So we wanted to help them to find out what we are actually 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:35.087 doing and how many students we have at our school. And lastly and that's 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:39.356 actually very important for the students said we had a very extensive 00:08:39.389 --> 00:08:44.746 network with the community, mainly community organization that had an 00:08:44.779 --> 00:08:49.807 internet religious background because that was just the fact these were 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:54.266 the people that wanted to help. They would pick up students at the airport 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:58.817 that would invite them into their homes, they took them in when the 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:03.636 dormitories were closed and really let to get them know what the american 00:09:03.669 --> 00:09:09.116 family life is. Suzanne, you were in the admissions department than to 00:09:09.149 --> 00:09:13.327 begin with over in the more building. Who was the head of admissions at 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:18.106 that time. And who did you report to? Yes at that time it was dr roger 00:09:18.139 --> 00:09:23.707 Swanson who was also a professor of english, He was in charge of admission 00:09:23.740 --> 00:09:28.817 and then later on, I think I reported to Christine Wilkinson for a while. 00:09:28.850 --> 00:09:33.927 And then when Betty Asher came, we transferred to student life and you 00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:37.657 became my supervisor 00:09:37.690 --> 00:09:43.077 That was in the 70s. So who was the president? Dr. Swatter was our 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:47.616 president then. Yes. So when you came what, there were around 200 00:09:47.649 --> 00:09:52.047 international students, we were about 200 students. And that was when 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:56.866 Richard Richard Star Thomas was here and a lot of them were Saudi Arabians. 00:09:56.899 --> 00:10:04.016 But then somehow that program petered out Now. We have 6,703 00:10:04.049 --> 00:10:09.927 international students which is a 3000, almost 3500 increase. I mean that 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:14.587 is incredible. That's an incredible accomplishment for the institution to 00:10:14.620 --> 00:10:20.606 have internationalized the campus so much. 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:28.639 When I left they were about 60% graduates for 40 undergraduates. And the 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:33.256 institution actually move towards having more graduate students and accept 00:10:33.289 --> 00:10:38.516 from them are wanting assistance ships, graduate students are just easier 00:10:38.549 --> 00:10:43.876 to work with for the institutions. You know, they're more mature and 00:10:43.909 --> 00:10:49.047 academically they contribute contribute so much more um through research 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:54.907 and other assistance ships, 30 400 of the students are graduate students 00:10:54.940 --> 00:11:00.197 here at issue. I think at last count. Well, I forgot to add actually after 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:06.386 September 11 our involvement plummeted. But now we are again, well, you 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:10.417 had quite a lot, quite a few communications with immigration. Could you 00:11:10.450 --> 00:11:14.937 talk about that a little more because that was critical. Yes. Well you 00:11:14.970 --> 00:11:21.476 know immigration generally by people who work in international education 00:11:21.509 --> 00:11:27.496 is kind of scene as maybe not the enemy but certainly a person we have you 00:11:27.529 --> 00:11:32.427 know we have to be aware of what they're doing and you know sometimes 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:36.356 there's disagreement. Well I never had that feeling. You know from the 00:11:36.389 --> 00:11:41.947 very beginning we worked together and if I can say so actually Nasa, which 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:46.587 was our professional organization, we were very well organized on 00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:50.726 immigration regulations and we sometimes actually knew more than 00:11:50.759 --> 00:11:54.337 immigration new. But I tried to be very tactful with them. You know, we 00:11:54.370 --> 00:11:58.907 got them on camp campus, we invited them for lunch. And when there was a 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:03.376 big immigration law change in 82 remember when the amnesty business and 00:12:03.409 --> 00:12:10.756 all that came. Um we had a meeting in a huge room in the M. U. And three 00:12:10.789 --> 00:12:16.596 immigration people came and then two of our campus and about 800 students 00:12:16.629 --> 00:12:21.096 came and listened to how the new rules would affect them. And it just went 00:12:21.129 --> 00:12:24.927 very well and you know we were very sure never to put them on the spot 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:28.996 where you know there might be a disagreement and in fact many times they 00:12:29.029 --> 00:12:33.427 even called us you know to ensure that something was right. So the 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:37.917 relationship was good. But they had tremendous power. You know they could 00:12:37.950 --> 00:12:41.807 if a student didn't do the right thing and they had another issue against 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:48.407 him. Let's see now in going forward a little bit, if there was possible 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:52.907 terrorist issue or something like that, Then they could use just the 00:12:52.940 --> 00:13:00.146 slightest infraction, like if they took nine hours instead of 12 two begin 00:13:00.179 --> 00:13:03.407 proceedings against them. 00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:08.087 There were a lot of technical aspects regarding your position in terms of 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:12.317 getting things right, could you speak to that a little bit? I mean when 00:13:12.350 --> 00:13:16.126 you get into visas and it's something that not everybody understands 00:13:16.159 --> 00:13:20.026 exactly. You know, I had worked actually love with lawyers, immigration 00:13:20.059 --> 00:13:24.317 lawyers, and I would say, you know, when I, you know, I have a lot of 00:13:24.350 --> 00:13:27.697 lawyers actually in my family and they would always surprise, you know, 00:13:27.730 --> 00:13:31.986 the stuff I would talk about and I certainly number one, I have to note 00:13:32.019 --> 00:13:36.817 the regulations, we couldn't make any mistakes because, you know, the 00:13:36.850 --> 00:13:40.596 repercussions would be too great if a student is sent home or cannot get a 00:13:40.629 --> 00:13:45.087 job because we did something wrong. So we were very, very careful and we 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.837 had a lot of workshop and brought immigration lawyers who talked to the 00:13:48.870 --> 00:13:52.207 students and 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:55.577 it was a growing experience for me because that was something I didn't 00:13:55.610 --> 00:14:00.207 know anything about, um, 00:14:00.240 --> 00:14:06.337 Knowing immigration made it also possible for me to advise faculty chairs 00:14:06.370 --> 00:14:09.467 because they never, you know, they wanted something for their students, 00:14:09.500 --> 00:14:13.917 can he work here, can work more than 40 hours on campus, we want him to 00:14:13.950 --> 00:14:17.986 work in that company right away. And of course that was not possible. And 00:14:18.019 --> 00:14:21.986 initially that was a very sore points for all of us because they just 00:14:22.019 --> 00:14:25.797 wouldn't believe it. And then we started our campaign, we went and talked 00:14:25.830 --> 00:14:32.037 , we got together and an internship possibility is a good example. You 00:14:32.070 --> 00:14:36.077 know, internships were becoming very important then. And basically a 00:14:36.110 --> 00:14:39.886 student just couldn't do that. An international student unless he was 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:44.437 registered in the class and got credit. Well, initially department just 00:14:44.470 --> 00:14:47.807 didn't like that. You know, we kind of told them what they sometimes 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:51.437 thought, you know, that was us who made up those rules. Well, they learned 00:14:51.470 --> 00:14:55.337 soon that wasn't true, but we worked it out that if they had, if they 00:14:55.370 --> 00:15:00.866 established an internship that counted in their degree program, then we 00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:04.407 could do it, we could put them on on give them a practical training work 00:15:04.440 --> 00:15:09.476 from it and then it worked out and everybody was happy. So the technical 00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:13.807 aspects was was that that one of the toughest things about your position? 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:18.087 Yes, because well, we have to be absolutely sure. We told the students 00:15:18.120 --> 00:15:22.587 provide information and also the institution. You can actually compare it 00:15:22.620 --> 00:15:26.266 to financial aid. They cannot make mistakes there when they deal with the 00:15:26.299 --> 00:15:29.516 federal government was the same with us. We dealt with the federal 00:15:29.549 --> 00:15:34.006 government. You have to know the rules, 00:15:34.039 --> 00:15:39.047 the host families that you seem to have found a lot of host families, what 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:45.057 was what was that like trying to round up people to take him not taken in 00:15:45.090 --> 00:15:51.177 , bring them into their homes and how did you go about that? Well they 00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:56.396 would invite me to give presentations at their churches for example or at 00:15:56.429 --> 00:16:02.807 social meetings. I would too there to the people of the of the community 00:16:02.840 --> 00:16:05.577 to tell them what to expect. You know what they should do for 00:16:05.610 --> 00:16:08.876 international students or what they could do and what they shouldn't like 00:16:08.909 --> 00:16:11.756 for example, don't loan them any money. That's not the kind of 00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:15.927 relationship you want to develop. Don't get involved in immigration issues 00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:20.106 and things like that. But you know what they would appreciate the most and 00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:26.947 that was of course celebration christmas birthday thanksgiving and we also 00:16:26.980 --> 00:16:32.407 told them that proselytizing you know is not expected to be part of that 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:37.976 program. And I have never had any problem never. But interestingly love 00:16:38.009 --> 00:16:43.307 actually a lot of students from Korea for example they were already 00:16:43.340 --> 00:16:50.886 Baptists. It's not true you know that I mean there's a lot of christian 00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:53.996 students around the world and they wanted to practice it here when they 00:16:54.029 --> 00:17:00.146 came here. And it was interesting to um and also yeah another thing we 00:17:00.179 --> 00:17:03.896 told them that's not for living there because of course they would have 00:17:03.929 --> 00:17:07.857 liked to live as american family but unless the family made almost a 00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:12.726 financial arrangement and was not the host family per se. We said that's 00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:17.476 not part of our program. They just come on special occasions And many 00:17:17.509 --> 00:17:21.546 international students say when they remember their stay in the United 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:27.046 States, the best part was the host family because that was real. You know 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:31.506 , that was the real America. 00:17:31.539 --> 00:17:36.496 Are there any comments we haven't covered you'd like to make? Well, I love 00:17:36.529 --> 00:17:41.867 my job. I don't know whether everybody, you know, lost their job like I 00:17:41.900 --> 00:17:45.986 did. It was always interesting. It was never boring and I had a wonderful 00:17:46.019 --> 00:17:52.306 , supportive staff. Many of them were internationals and you know, I was 00:17:52.339 --> 00:17:55.306 able, I guess, 00:17:55.339 --> 00:18:01.536 to respect what my aims were and and they both they all I wanted to do it 00:18:01.569 --> 00:18:05.617 the same way and I think the international students in general returned 00:18:05.650 --> 00:18:11.506 that goodwill and when I retired I sent everybody through the internet. 00:18:11.539 --> 00:18:15.137 You know, I notice saying I'm not being going to be here anymore and I 00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:20.746 really will miss you. And I got so many responses from the students. But 00:18:20.779 --> 00:18:25.316 one of them was funny. One of them said, oh yeah, we really liked you. I'm 00:18:25.349 --> 00:18:29.316 sorry you're not going to be here anymore. But can you find me a host 00:18:29.349 --> 00:18:37.349 family? They never forgot that we were there to help them. 00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:51.147 Alright. Uh what do you remember most about your career at issue? Well, I 00:18:51.180 --> 00:18:54.707 would say it was never boring. That was, there was always something 00:18:54.740 --> 00:18:59.806 happening and it wasn't usually in the United States, it was actually many 00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:04.637 times an international event. You know, a crisis would happen which would 00:19:04.670 --> 00:19:08.897 affect our students and we would have to step in and try to help them 00:19:08.930 --> 00:19:13.367 because they were affected in many ways. The most important one probably 00:19:13.400 --> 00:19:17.117 is that they couldn't get any funds from back home and pay for their 00:19:17.150 --> 00:19:22.107 tuition. That caused caused tremendous problems 00:19:22.140 --> 00:19:27.316 um what was special or outstanding about your position and 00:19:27.349 --> 00:19:30.207 responsibilities? 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:34.806 Well what was specialist I got to meet, you know, the most, the most 00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:39.717 talented students around the world, They must really wonderful to work 00:19:39.750 --> 00:19:44.806 with them. Initially they were more undergraduate students, but as we got 00:19:44.839 --> 00:19:50.306 more into international education, they were mainly graduate students did 00:19:50.339 --> 00:19:54.197 , I say undergraduate before graduate students and I had to work very 00:19:54.230 --> 00:19:58.816 closely with the graduate college and you know, it was a wonderful 00:19:58.849 --> 00:20:04.046 opportunity to help them to reach their educational goals. And then later 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:09.607 on get into the american job markets because that's what many wanted and 00:20:09.640 --> 00:20:14.437 that's why of course many companies also kept in close contact with the 00:20:14.470 --> 00:20:18.417 university because they wanted to be there in line when students were, 00:20:18.450 --> 00:20:22.986 these qualified students were looking for a job and that the departments 00:20:23.019 --> 00:20:26.756 to, they were totally dependent on these international students, 00:20:26.789 --> 00:20:31.336 Electrical engineering, Computer science, mechanical and engine 00:20:31.369 --> 00:20:35.137 engineering to, they would sometimes say, you know, we could teach these 00:20:35.170 --> 00:20:41.076 classes in hindi or in chinese because most of them including the teacher 00:20:41.109 --> 00:20:44.917 or the graduate students who was teaching the class was from outside of 00:20:44.950 --> 00:20:51.756 the United States And of course the goal is to get more american students 00:20:51.789 --> 00:20:55.586 into the computer programs. But I think that is still a big challenge 00:20:55.619 --> 00:21:03.306 today. As I recall part of your job was cooperating uh getting support 00:21:03.339 --> 00:21:09.836 from the campus and from the community and the more support in that when 00:21:09.869 --> 00:21:14.107 really things were needed, really helped out the students and helped out 00:21:14.140 --> 00:21:18.437 the university. Could you come on, come in on that a little bit? Yes, yes. 00:21:18.470 --> 00:21:23.127 You know, we were a small department initially and we were kind of, you 00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:28.107 know, hidden in in the more building and we didn't have much influence on 00:21:28.140 --> 00:21:32.586 campus because we just were not very important. Let's face it. Well, as we 00:21:32.619 --> 00:21:36.897 got more students and there were more problems and issues that had to be 00:21:36.930 --> 00:21:42.857 addressed? I realized I couldn't do it by myself. So I started to work 00:21:42.890 --> 00:21:49.506 with people the graduate college, the chance of the individual departments 00:21:49.539 --> 00:21:54.417 admissions was very important. The business office immigration, the 00:21:54.450 --> 00:21:59.066 community to and other foreign student advisors that had maybe more 00:21:59.099 --> 00:22:04.056 experience than I did. And we formed alliances. So when things happened, 00:22:04.089 --> 00:22:07.746 we really were a team and we could address it together. And that was 00:22:07.779 --> 00:22:10.707 tremendously helpful. 00:22:10.740 --> 00:22:16.496 Cultural diversity I think enters into the discussion here because 00:22:16.529 --> 00:22:23.147 In the 80s are numbers of ethnic minority students really accelerated uh 00:22:23.180 --> 00:22:26.996 but related to the cultural diversity. I mean, we had all these diverse 00:22:27.029 --> 00:22:32.226 international students. Could you talk about the attitude that cultural 00:22:32.259 --> 00:22:37.867 diversity, How that entered into affecting our international students? 00:22:37.900 --> 00:22:44.207 That's a very good question Around the 80s, these things happened. Much 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:48.026 bigger awareness of cultural diversity and also the number of students we 00:22:48.059 --> 00:22:53.486 have on campus and at the same time the student in student life took a 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:57.826 different role. He became much more important student life focused on the 00:22:57.859 --> 00:23:04.066 student, some people even called him or her the client. And so whatever we 00:23:04.099 --> 00:23:09.847 did, we did had to be done to help the student breath to reach his or her 00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:15.177 educational goal. Well, when that happened, that was really very positive 00:23:15.210 --> 00:23:20.697 for our international students because you know, before, well, they were 00:23:20.730 --> 00:23:25.756 just kind of going their own way. But they were then included in cultural 00:23:25.789 --> 00:23:30.177 diversity population. So people became much more friendly. They become 00:23:30.210 --> 00:23:34.826 much more helpful and the whole atmosphere towards everyone that's from 00:23:34.859 --> 00:23:39.986 somewhere else became better and people saw that different groups have 00:23:40.019 --> 00:23:48.019 really something to offer to our campus. 00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:56.536 There were certain international events that were happening while you were 00:23:56.569 --> 00:24:02.006 there that probably the general public didn't really realize or understand 00:24:02.039 --> 00:24:06.006 how it would affect the students. But it created tremendous challenges for 00:24:06.039 --> 00:24:10.976 the university. But but for those particular students. But let's retrace 00:24:11.009 --> 00:24:16.657 here going back to some of these international events that didn't did 00:24:16.690 --> 00:24:22.717 affect our enrollment And we, we could start out in in the 70s. And in in 00:24:22.750 --> 00:24:30.750 the 70's we had a number of events happening with with Opec. There was, 00:24:30.769 --> 00:24:37.286 well it affected different countries, could, could you speak to that, What 00:24:37.319 --> 00:24:42.177 the impact and challenges that presented for not only our students but the 00:24:42.210 --> 00:24:47.796 university institution. Yes after we had 200 students 00:24:47.829 --> 00:24:53.006 that was in the early seventies. Suddenly we had the boom of the Opec 00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:56.147 countries, the organization 00:24:56.180 --> 00:25:01.316 of petroleum exporting countries and suddenly there were all these petrol 00:25:01.349 --> 00:25:05.826 dollars flowing around and many, many students came from, many in Nigeria 00:25:05.859 --> 00:25:10.756 Venezuela Saudi Arabia and Iran And these were all very very young 00:25:10.789 --> 00:25:15.326 students and they were not very mature 18 year old students. You can 00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:19.687 imagine American students at that age. They do if they go to college the 00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:26.026 first time. So it was quite an issue. They were also really not all that 00:25:26.059 --> 00:25:31.076 prepared to take these difficult engineering classes. So I think both the 00:25:31.109 --> 00:25:35.076 university, the university and I mean the departments and our office, we 00:25:35.109 --> 00:25:38.756 were really quite overwhelmed by that. And that was really the beginning 00:25:38.789 --> 00:25:43.347 of when we started to think okay we have this population now we better get 00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:49.506 together and figure out how we can help them best to finish their degrees. 00:25:49.539 --> 00:25:53.617 And then of course came the Iranian crisis. And then after that we had 00:25:53.650 --> 00:25:59.026 the crisis in Lebanon. I remember Betty Betty Asher who was the vice 00:25:59.059 --> 00:26:03.546 president then she called me in, she had been friendly with some Lebanese 00:26:03.579 --> 00:26:08.806 students and she wanted to know why we couldn't help students pay their 00:26:08.839 --> 00:26:14.026 tuition because the money transfer was totally interrupted. And that was 00:26:14.059 --> 00:26:17.566 at the time when if you didn't have the money, you did not register. So 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:22.786 that's just the way it was. And I tried to explain it to her and she 00:26:22.819 --> 00:26:27.167 didn't really quite like that, but that's the way it was and the same 00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:30.687 thing with why can't they just work well, immigration wouldn't let them 00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:36.157 work. So that was the time when people were not really aware yet what the 00:26:36.190 --> 00:26:40.187 constraints were for international students. And again, then the 00:26:40.220 --> 00:26:45.556 institution really hoped to work on that and make it possible for them to 00:26:45.589 --> 00:26:52.117 continue their studies with the fall of the Shah and we get to Khamenei 00:26:52.150 --> 00:26:57.296 here. What was the impact on those students? What was their thinking when 00:26:57.329 --> 00:27:01.857 all of this was going on? I mean, were they upset or? Yeah. You know, the 00:27:01.890 --> 00:27:06.387 problem, we had kind of incidents with internet-based Iranian students 00:27:06.420 --> 00:27:10.877 before it actually happened in 79 because they couldn't get their money 00:27:10.910 --> 00:27:16.847 from back home. They were kind of recalcitrant because they didn't feel, 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:21.147 you know, they should have to follow immigration regulations where things 00:27:21.180 --> 00:27:26.437 were so difficult for them. But then, as I was at the conference in 00:27:26.470 --> 00:27:33.006 colorado actually, we found out that the Shah had had been disposed and 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.417 that initially actually was a wonderful event because the students were so 00:27:37.450 --> 00:27:42.877 euphoric, they hated what was going on in Iran and we all actually felt 00:27:42.910 --> 00:27:47.677 with them, something good is gonna come out of that. But then pretty soon 00:27:47.710 --> 00:27:53.867 you know things turned in a different direction and when the guards in 00:27:53.900 --> 00:28:01.226 Iran concord or stormed the american embassy in Tehran everything changed. 00:28:01.259 --> 00:28:06.306 And the goodwill towards the Iranian students totally went away because 00:28:06.339 --> 00:28:11.806 they were protesting they were burning cars, they didn't want to you know 00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:16.187 , do what they were supposed to do. That is full time students and then 00:28:16.220 --> 00:28:22.066 immigration really reacted tremendously. They wanted all international 00:28:22.099 --> 00:28:26.697 Iranians down at the immigration office, they had to be fingerprinted, 00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:31.207 they had to be photographed and all their 00:28:31.240 --> 00:28:35.617 information had to be written down. Of course they resented that and it 00:28:35.650 --> 00:28:41.707 was difficult for them to go down to the immigration office in the parking 00:28:41.740 --> 00:28:45.917 when they didn't have cars. So I actually consulted some of my colleagues 00:28:45.950 --> 00:28:51.986 , how they felt about it and how they were going to handle this and most 00:28:52.019 --> 00:28:57.687 of them said we're not gonna we are not gonna accept this as a reality, 00:28:57.720 --> 00:29:02.367 We're just going to ignore it. Which meant they let their students have to 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:09.107 handle this on their own. Well I didn't agree with that. I felt you know 00:29:09.140 --> 00:29:13.786 everybody is sort of doing their job. Immigration has to through this 00:29:13.819 --> 00:29:18.177 inspection of our students. The students have to comply. So my job is to 00:29:18.210 --> 00:29:22.897 make it as easy for them as possible. So I get together got together with 00:29:22.930 --> 00:29:28.786 campus officials and we set up two huge rooms in the emu and we call them 00:29:28.819 --> 00:29:35.336 in you know every day a group from A. To K. L to Z. And then the last you 00:29:35.369 --> 00:29:39.736 know Canada cleaning up, the students didn't like it but they did 00:29:39.769 --> 00:29:44.066 appreciate that. You know we made it easier for them and even though they 00:29:44.099 --> 00:29:48.046 didn't say it, you know, I know that this was a job well done and you know 00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:51.707 it was over within three days, 00:29:51.740 --> 00:29:57.266 you mentioned the demonstrations and that. But I think a lot of that 00:29:57.299 --> 00:30:02.526 activity was taking place the protesting on West hall lawn and that was 00:30:02.559 --> 00:30:07.586 before the library was built. And one of our student life's 00:30:07.619 --> 00:30:12.266 responsibilities was to essentially keep the students away from the 00:30:12.299 --> 00:30:16.177 Iranian students because they were so upset you know with what was going 00:30:16.210 --> 00:30:21.336 on. And in fact we had some students go to some radio station and the tv 00:30:21.369 --> 00:30:25.726 station telling them we were not helping them. And I remember we had some 00:30:25.759 --> 00:30:30.897 reporters come to my office and we explained the situation and it really 00:30:30.930 --> 00:30:35.306 felt good when you and dr ham you know they you know, they made me feel 00:30:35.339 --> 00:30:39.207 that you know, we did the right job by you know, explaining the situation 00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:45.137 that was a first for me the first ad on tv. You know, and I had all these 00:30:45.170 --> 00:30:49.766 Iranians who were so angry. You know they were really quite a threat 00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:54.407 because they got very angry when they were unhappy. But anybody kind of 00:30:54.440 --> 00:30:59.657 knew that on campus so many also had mental health issues because they 00:30:59.690 --> 00:31:03.736 were under tremendous stress. So we worked with the counseling center and 00:31:03.769 --> 00:31:08.226 they tried to help them as much as possible. You know, we had the 00:31:08.259 --> 00:31:15.296 Tiananmen Square event which was a big issue and a lot of people in the 00:31:15.329 --> 00:31:20.627 United States, you know had really little awareness as to the impact that 00:31:20.660 --> 00:31:24.647 that was going to have on our particular students, but also the issue in 00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:29.437 terms of the challenges. Could you talk a little bit about that era? Yes, 00:31:29.470 --> 00:31:34.597 this one, this was one of the most positive reactions that we had on the 00:31:34.630 --> 00:31:39.647 campus. Everybody wanted to help everybody wanted to be involved because 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.397 we had this iconic picture of that students standing before we tank and 00:31:44.430 --> 00:31:49.417 you know, we still remember that today and even immigration came along and 00:31:49.450 --> 00:31:53.967 they basically limited all restrictions and they let even students that 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:59.016 were on student on visitor's visa stay here and they they basically got 00:31:59.049 --> 00:32:03.476 everything because we really wanted to create a good relationship with 00:32:03.509 --> 00:32:11.207 china because political considerations often were part of the rules and 00:32:11.240 --> 00:32:16.607 directions under which immigration had to work. So that was a wonderful 00:32:16.640 --> 00:32:21.377 time when chinese students were so well, we had a lot of people calling 00:32:21.410 --> 00:32:24.566 and asked you know what they could do if they could invite them for dinner 00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:31.776 and very nice In the early 90s then we had the Gulf War and with the 00:32:31.809 --> 00:32:38.177 kuwaiti students talk about that a little bit when Saddam Hussein invaded 00:32:38.210 --> 00:32:44.417 Iraq and not Iraq kuwait and suddenly everybody knew about it because the 00:32:44.450 --> 00:32:52.006 americans they were on, they were helping the side against Iraq and so 00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:55.566 they wanted to know how what's happening to the kuwaitis. We had a lot of 00:32:55.599 --> 00:33:00.286 Kuwaiti students who were very generously supported by the government. 00:33:00.319 --> 00:33:02.607 Well suddenly, 00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:05.437 you know, they were on their own, they couldn't get any money and the 00:33:05.470 --> 00:33:10.536 university had this stern policy because they had been burned so many 00:33:10.569 --> 00:33:15.177 times before because people said they wanted to borrow money but then they 00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:20.756 could never pay back until one or two years later so nobody could register 00:33:20.789 --> 00:33:25.127 until they had the money on the spot on the spot. Now nobody wanted this 00:33:25.160 --> 00:33:29.107 to happen to the international students, to the Kuwaiti students because 00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:33.407 everybody knew it wasn't their fault and their sponsor was very generous 00:33:33.440 --> 00:33:38.806 and they knew the money was becoming eventually. So we all work together, 00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:45.097 jerry Snyder Hanks, sponsor puma remember him and I think you were on the 00:33:45.130 --> 00:33:49.826 committee to the graduate college admissions. We all worked together and 00:33:49.859 --> 00:33:54.717 we made an exception that they could just be on campus and go to class 00:33:54.750 --> 00:33:59.697 until this problem was solved. Immigration tooth went on the back of 00:33:59.730 --> 00:34:03.836 bandwagon and they could work. I mean they basically were no limitations 00:34:03.869 --> 00:34:07.766 on the model. So that was a very good feeling that we had achieved that 00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:15.697 together. Even Christine, she organized a group with a S. U. Staff and she 00:34:15.730 --> 00:34:21.416 used mary mary oh mary Wagner, she's called now and she had been on a 00:34:21.449 --> 00:34:26.057 different project. She had been in the Middle East in Qatar and kuwait and 00:34:26.090 --> 00:34:33.117 she used her to explain to her personnel what the american students who 00:34:33.150 --> 00:34:37.646 have been or we're going to kuwait might be going through. So again 00:34:37.679 --> 00:34:41.967 everybody learned more about kuwait and it's it was a widening of the 00:34:42.000 --> 00:34:49.887 horizon of the area's population uh with the defeat of apartheid in South 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:56.046 Africa that did have an impact also I think on our enrollment and other 00:34:56.079 --> 00:35:01.126 challenges. Well what I remember best about that is actually a wonderful 00:35:01.159 --> 00:35:06.887 moment and it could be considered, I don't know the most, not the happiest 00:35:06.920 --> 00:35:11.727 but the most impressive moment to me. We had a project for our 00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:17.637 international students which was called the jefferson democracy project. 00:35:17.670 --> 00:35:21.506 They learned about democracy in the United States and we took them to 00:35:21.539 --> 00:35:26.557 several events and at the end we had a celebration And everyone came. We 00:35:26.590 --> 00:35:33.267 had almost 30 students and Laddie cool came you came, Christine came and 00:35:33.300 --> 00:35:38.586 then we happen to have a student from two students from South America, one 00:35:38.619 --> 00:35:42.907 was a black student sponsored student by the Institute of International 00:35:42.940 --> 00:35:47.756 Education and the other one was a white student and it just so happened 00:35:47.789 --> 00:35:54.706 that right then apartheid apartheid was abolished, which of course added 00:35:54.739 --> 00:36:01.717 additional importance to our project. So our students selected those two 00:36:01.750 --> 00:36:05.736 students from South Africa to give a little speech at the end and they 00:36:05.769 --> 00:36:10.517 both did. And everybody was very emotional and they hugged each other at 00:36:10.550 --> 00:36:15.356 the end and you know, tears were flowing down their cheeks. And that's 00:36:15.389 --> 00:36:18.287 probably the first time they actually even touched each other. There was 00:36:18.320 --> 00:36:25.296 two students from South America from South Africa and I think there were 00:36:25.329 --> 00:36:30.017 much, much emotion in that room and I'll never forget that how, you know 00:36:30.050 --> 00:36:34.416 how our students, our population could be involved in that. What was going 00:36:34.449 --> 00:36:41.126 on in another country. Yeah. And in the 90s then we had the, a lot of 00:36:41.159 --> 00:36:47.037 economic issues in Asia and the crisis there. How did that affect our 00:36:47.070 --> 00:36:50.967 enrollment? Well, that was of course many, many countries in ASia were 00:36:51.000 --> 00:36:55.967 affected. And again, from one day to the next, they couldn't enroll 00:36:56.000 --> 00:37:01.006 because they didn't have the money. Again, Immigration responded very 00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:04.086 generously could they could do basically, we have, they didn't even have 00:37:04.119 --> 00:37:10.747 to go to school, I think. Um, and at the same time, of course we were also 00:37:10.780 --> 00:37:16.316 affected in the United States. A lot of us saw our portfolio slide down 00:37:16.349 --> 00:37:20.977 together with, you know, what happened. And, and, and in Southeast Asia 00:37:21.010 --> 00:37:27.227 and I think for the first time I realized myself and many other people for 00:37:27.260 --> 00:37:32.467 to what global into into interconnectedness means. We are all together in 00:37:32.500 --> 00:37:35.997 the same boat. now when something happens, it doesn't matter how far away 00:37:36.030 --> 00:37:44.030 it is, We come to 9 11 that definitely had an impact. Talk about that. Yes 00:37:45.530 --> 00:37:52.617 , of course I had the luck, I guess you could call it to retire two months 00:37:52.650 --> 00:37:57.336 before september 11th, so we didn't know what was coming, but I remember 00:37:57.369 --> 00:38:03.657 when when I gave my goodbye remark, it's my retirement remarks, I did say 00:38:03.690 --> 00:38:08.916 that was in 2001. Well, things are going pretty well now, everything is 00:38:08.949 --> 00:38:13.876 calm now, let's see what comes next. Well, September 11 of course, what 00:38:13.909 --> 00:38:20.037 came next and it was just a tremendous impact on the international student 00:38:20.070 --> 00:38:23.916 program. Number one students couldn't get the visas anymore for a long 00:38:23.949 --> 00:38:29.597 time. So the involvement numbers went down tremendously secondly, there 00:38:29.630 --> 00:38:35.037 was really not the friendship and and the goodwill towards international 00:38:35.070 --> 00:38:40.927 students, particularly those from the Middle East. But she would also 00:38:40.960 --> 00:38:47.407 surprise me actually how so many students Arabian students, especially the 00:38:47.440 --> 00:38:53.316 Saudis, they were on the side of the Hitchhikers. Maybe they didn't want 00:38:53.349 --> 00:38:56.997 you know all that suffering with the with the tower and all the people 00:38:57.030 --> 00:39:00.387 that were killed. But 00:39:00.420 --> 00:39:03.287 they start 00:39:03.320 --> 00:39:06.907 that wasn't such a horrible thing from their point of view, from the 00:39:06.940 --> 00:39:11.706 Islamic point of view. So I know they worked very, very hard to you know, 00:39:11.739 --> 00:39:17.506 to win their confidence again and they have done that now because the 00:39:17.539 --> 00:39:22.467 students, the international student program is alive and well at Arizona 00:39:22.500 --> 00:39:27.276 State University is doing very, very well. But it was a total shock for 00:39:27.309 --> 00:39:31.626 everyone and if I can tell a little anecdote, which seems unbelievable, 00:39:31.659 --> 00:39:34.887 but it's actually true. 00:39:34.920 --> 00:39:39.927 I had a student that wanted to see me and he specifically asked for me but 00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:44.467 my staff told me he was not and he was not in our program, he had not been 00:39:44.500 --> 00:39:48.146 admitted yet, but he waited and waited. He didn't have an appointment. So 00:39:48.179 --> 00:39:53.287 finally he came in and I remember thinking he wanted to get into the 00:39:53.320 --> 00:39:56.387 computer science. 00:39:56.420 --> 00:40:03.106 He was in a flight school in the neighbor in the area here. But you know I 00:40:03.139 --> 00:40:07.856 felt very sorry for him because to me he seemed like a lost sheep because 00:40:07.889 --> 00:40:11.287 he didn't know what to do. He said, he said he was under tremendous 00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:15.936 pressure. Then the second time he came and again he wanted to see me and 00:40:15.969 --> 00:40:20.546 again we had the same discussions. But again I couldn't help him because 00:40:20.579 --> 00:40:26.776 you know admission was not my area of competence. We didn't admit students. 00:40:26.809 --> 00:40:30.546 Well as it turned out, I guess you guessed it now. He was one of the 00:40:30.579 --> 00:40:35.977 terrorists. But you know, he didn't seem like an aggressive 00:40:36.010 --> 00:40:39.887 person you would be afraid of. He was a lost jeep, which I thought that 00:40:39.920 --> 00:40:43.486 was interesting. 00:40:43.519 --> 00:40:48.086 I've never heard that before. Yeah, it really affected my staff. Yeah, 00:40:48.119 --> 00:40:52.407 because they thought what we had this guy sitting out there were you 00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:56.186 contacted by the government? Did you contact the government actually? Of 00:40:56.219 --> 00:40:59.697 course, I never knew it when I talked to him. You know, it came later. I 00:40:59.730 --> 00:41:03.986 actually called the FBI or forgotten or whether it was, I think it was the 00:41:04.019 --> 00:41:09.416 FBI because they wanted as much information that they could get. They were 00:41:09.449 --> 00:41:13.287 not one bit interested. They were well I gave him the name and you know, 00:41:13.320 --> 00:41:18.336 the institution but they were not interested. You know, he couldn't have 00:41:18.369 --> 00:41:23.727 been used for prevention and I guess he was dead. So I was actually 00:41:23.760 --> 00:41:30.126 surprised by that. But remember there was a an immigration agent that 00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:35.307 worked at the phoenix office and he sent a memo to Washington saying that 00:41:35.340 --> 00:41:39.626 all these students here that are taking flight lessons, they don't learn 00:41:39.659 --> 00:41:42.847 how to land. I don't know if he said that or not, they ignored it. They 00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:49.637 never did anything with it. It's very strange. Yeah. Remember when the 00:41:49.670 --> 00:41:56.396 Berlin wall fell and suddenly we were going to have students from Eastern 00:41:56.429 --> 00:42:00.907 europe and so there was a particular student, the physics department was 00:42:00.940 --> 00:42:04.747 always eager to get this highly eager to get these highly qualified 00:42:04.780 --> 00:42:10.356 students. So they got one from Russia and that student, you know, he was 00:42:10.389 --> 00:42:14.997 so happy that he was able to come and then we found out while he was here 00:42:15.030 --> 00:42:18.977 , but he's only in new york, he only had enough money to get to new york. 00:42:19.010 --> 00:42:23.157 So you know, everybody was calling around, we didn't know what to do and I 00:42:23.190 --> 00:42:28.467 don't remember exactly how it happened. But Christine Wilkinson ended up 00:42:28.500 --> 00:42:32.887 putting that trip on her credit card which showed her commitment to 00:42:32.920 --> 00:42:36.256 international education. 00:42:36.289 --> 00:42:44.289 So that was a good memory. Yes 00:42:48.599 --> 00:42:53.387 of all your accomplishments at ASU which have given you the most 00:42:53.420 --> 00:42:55.566 satisfaction. 00:42:55.599 --> 00:43:00.066 Well there's another story I have to tell. Well we had a scholarship 00:43:00.099 --> 00:43:05.057 program, most of it was for students other than Latin America but it had 00:43:05.090 --> 00:43:09.597 pretty high, we had pretty high standards for that because those students 00:43:09.630 --> 00:43:15.347 were all very qualified. So you had to have almost 3.8 to God get it. We 00:43:15.380 --> 00:43:19.197 had a student who came to me, he had been in the english program to learn 00:43:19.230 --> 00:43:23.566 english. So he was very new and he asked me if we could help him. He was a 00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:28.066 Palestinian, a christian Palestinian and he said it was so difficult for 00:43:28.099 --> 00:43:34.017 his parents. And I said well unfortunately um you know the requirements 00:43:34.050 --> 00:43:40.336 for the scholarships are too high and then it somehow came out that he was 00:43:40.369 --> 00:43:46.807 actually born in chile but we also had south american scholarships but 00:43:46.840 --> 00:43:51.117 really you know somebody in the legislature I think had decided we should 00:43:51.150 --> 00:43:55.206 encourage latin american students but we had number one, not many students 00:43:55.239 --> 00:43:59.986 from there and number two they were not really all that qualified But then 00:44:00.019 --> 00:44:04.086 that gave me idea, I mean he was qualified enough. He probably had 3.2 or 00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:08.727 something. So I said well you were born in chile really well what's your 00:44:08.760 --> 00:44:12.927 nationality? He said, well I also have national nationality from chile and 00:44:12.960 --> 00:44:17.097 I said, well can you prove that? And he said yeah next day he came in with 00:44:17.130 --> 00:44:21.947 his passport and sure enough it said chile and his name. So I conferred 00:44:21.980 --> 00:44:26.497 with some other colleagues and we gave him the scholarship and he did very 00:44:26.530 --> 00:44:31.367 very well ideas you and and I really feel that was a wonderful thing that 00:44:31.400 --> 00:44:36.276 we could do to help him now. But that's a little post quick to that. I 00:44:36.309 --> 00:44:40.206 happened to read this magazine. Nobody told me about it. I haven't to read 00:44:40.239 --> 00:44:45.396 this magazine. And there he was in there he was interviewed With his 00:44:45.429 --> 00:44:50.356 family of three or 4 Children. And he talks about his experience at A. S. 00:44:50.389 --> 00:44:55.796 U. And he really, really liked it. And the thing that impressed me the 00:44:55.829 --> 00:45:00.307 most that he liked the whole institution. He liked our office. But what he 00:45:00.340 --> 00:45:07.006 said at the end is in additional to educational matters. Susanne made sure 00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:12.736 that we adapted to the new society in this capacity. She was a living 00:45:12.769 --> 00:45:18.217 example of hospitality, love and care and shaped the way and this is 00:45:18.250 --> 00:45:25.126 important. She shaped the way I look at the world today, which really, you 00:45:25.159 --> 00:45:28.927 know showed us we could do wonderful things with our program with any 00:45:28.960 --> 00:45:33.617 students. But in this particular case with international students because 00:45:33.650 --> 00:45:38.177 we know not all students that go back are gonna love the United States. We 00:45:38.210 --> 00:45:42.876 love that we know that but at the same time a student who has had such a 00:45:42.909 --> 00:45:48.296 good experience, he will remember us and he will be a friend of the United 00:45:48.329 --> 00:45:53.046 States and we certainly can use that. Which edition was that of the issue 00:45:53.079 --> 00:45:57.557 alumni magazine. 00:45:57.590 --> 00:46:04.486 It was because I think volume 15 number four may 2012. That's not that 00:46:04.519 --> 00:46:07.347 it's so long ago. Yeah. 00:46:07.380 --> 00:46:09.747 Yeah. 00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:14.256 Well in the late 70s we had kind of the opening of China and research 00:46:14.289 --> 00:46:19.447 researchers coming and could you talk about that era also that was a very 00:46:19.480 --> 00:46:23.907 exciting moment. At the very end of 79 we had the first Chinese coming. 00:46:23.940 --> 00:46:28.986 Now they were not students. Initially it was every what we would call a 00:46:29.019 --> 00:46:35.026 postdoc and of course he went into physics into electron microscopy. He 00:46:35.059 --> 00:46:39.986 wore his chinese outfit you know with the collar and big glasses and we 00:46:40.019 --> 00:46:42.916 were kind of worried how they're going to get along with the Taiwanese. 00:46:42.949 --> 00:46:48.717 But the Taiwanese they were so nice and gracious to them. They invited 00:46:48.750 --> 00:46:52.626 them to all their events and really helped them find apartments. So that 00:46:52.659 --> 00:46:57.827 was a very good beginning. It was also the beginning of A S. U. And the 00:46:57.860 --> 00:47:03.776 individual departments realizing what an asset these incredibly qualified 00:47:03.809 --> 00:47:08.117 students could bring and china of course was one country and then there 00:47:08.150 --> 00:47:12.296 were other countries later on. I mean we had the computer revolution that 00:47:12.329 --> 00:47:17.037 were from India that were really really very well qualified and would help 00:47:17.070 --> 00:47:21.807 the departments really have the very good students they could maybe 00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:27.460 otherwise not get because they would go to Harvard or stanford or whatever. 00:47:27.579 --> 00:47:29.579 We had a Chinese student I think in the 80s who was a graduate student 00:47:34.579 --> 00:47:40.146 came from china and he had gone through the cultural revolution. Yeah. You 00:47:40.179 --> 00:47:45.206 have any stories about chinese students? Cultural well you know they 00:47:45.239 --> 00:47:48.646 didn't talk so much about it because they were older but they would talk 00:47:48.679 --> 00:47:54.816 about how their family, it was mainly their families that suffered and how 00:47:54.849 --> 00:47:58.986 well educated people were sent out into the fields and they had to dig 00:47:59.019 --> 00:48:03.497 ditches and they had to do incredible things. They were not and they had 00:48:03.530 --> 00:48:08.717 to hide for example their instruments when they were musicians because 00:48:08.750 --> 00:48:16.750 classical music that was not accepted in a new cultural ideal of Mount 00:48:17.469 --> 00:48:22.856 Yeah they you know sometimes I didn't know how much they felt free to talk 00:48:22.889 --> 00:48:27.416 about that because at the beginning, you know they still felt the 00:48:27.449 --> 00:48:33.236 government is very powerful and they get, can get them for criticizing. 00:48:33.269 --> 00:48:37.236 Who would you find would be coming from china. People must have had some 00:48:37.269 --> 00:48:41.157 money or was the government sponsored? Well there was some government 00:48:41.190 --> 00:48:45.537 sponsoring but from china. You know I was never sure it's assistant ships. 00:48:45.570 --> 00:48:49.876 Assistant ships actually we had a lot of them besides engineering in 00:48:49.909 --> 00:48:53.666 music because they were very well trained in music. They wanted a lot of 00:48:53.699 --> 00:48:59.597 chinese students and I yeah in um you were an architecture were you? Yeah 00:48:59.630 --> 00:49:02.836 we had some that wanted to be an architecture but I think it was probably 00:49:02.869 --> 00:49:07.247 difficult for them to get their funds. And then yeah then they would yeah 00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:11.396 they were quite proficient at that. Then they would meet an american 00:49:11.429 --> 00:49:17.026 family or american couple that was traveling in china and they would be so 00:49:17.059 --> 00:49:21.367 interesting and so pleasant that they became friends and then they said 00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:24.637 can you help us come to United States? And the family always wanted to 00:49:24.670 --> 00:49:29.537 help. Well the only way you could help an international students to come 00:49:29.570 --> 00:49:35.236 here was to sign a financial guarantee which at that time was like $12,000. 00:49:35.269 --> 00:49:41.046 Well you know the most well meaning american family just couldn't just do 00:49:41.079 --> 00:49:45.137 that. And then they said well if which the students would say well it 00:49:45.170 --> 00:49:50.867 doesn't mean anything just signing well it did happen. Um and then they 00:49:50.900 --> 00:49:55.936 would have tremendous problems, you know because they you know that the 00:49:55.969 --> 00:49:59.537 people thought that well that wasn't really meant but it was meant. So we 00:49:59.570 --> 00:50:02.947 had a lot of conversations with people who wanted to bring students here 00:50:02.980 --> 00:50:06.947 that you know don't sign it if you don't want to give the students $12,000 00:50:06.980 --> 00:50:13.137 a month. But you know to say frankly many international students worked 00:50:13.170 --> 00:50:19.626 illegally. You know they worked off campus, you know like in chinese 00:50:19.659 --> 00:50:23.497 restaurants and things like that they didn't hurt anybody. But technically 00:50:23.530 --> 00:50:26.526 that was against the law 00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:32.626 there was really a demand for high tech students. 00:50:32.659 --> 00:50:36.637 What happened here at A. S. U. With our students? Well we just got more 00:50:36.670 --> 00:50:43.677 and more particularly indian students, they all came from very highly 00:50:43.710 --> 00:50:49.206 accredited schools in India. So our engineering department, they were 00:50:49.239 --> 00:50:53.376 mainly an engineering, our engineering department. They were well for well 00:50:53.409 --> 00:50:57.227 informed about those students. So the moment they admitted they came from 00:50:57.260 --> 00:51:01.727 that school at the moment they applied and they came from that school, 00:51:01.760 --> 00:51:07.097 they were admitted. Now indian school indian students they kind of had an 00:51:07.130 --> 00:51:11.747 interesting arrangement literally they may not have had the money. So a 00:51:11.780 --> 00:51:16.907 relative who was already in the United States would pay for it. And then 00:51:16.940 --> 00:51:22.626 the students hope to get an assistantship which they usually did. And then 00:51:22.659 --> 00:51:26.657 when they finished their studies they got the job through the practical 00:51:26.690 --> 00:51:30.626 training program which allowed them to work and they paid back that 00:51:30.659 --> 00:51:35.956 relative and then they would do the same to the next relative. This meant 00:51:35.989 --> 00:51:40.026 that almost all indian students had 00:51:40.059 --> 00:51:43.986 assistantship, you know they even had them not not in particularly 00:51:44.019 --> 00:51:48.287 technical department, you know because they were so good at computers, 00:51:48.320 --> 00:51:55.626 they worked well and they were easy to get along with. So I think 00:51:55.659 --> 00:52:00.157 the only disadvantage possible it might have been for the institutions was 00:52:00.190 --> 00:52:04.086 that some american students, freshmen, usually when they had these 00:52:04.119 --> 00:52:08.577 students at assistance, they said they couldn't understand them. Now 00:52:08.610 --> 00:52:11.956 indian students speak english very well because you know that's their 00:52:11.989 --> 00:52:16.517 second language but they definitely pronounce it differently than we do 00:52:16.550 --> 00:52:20.686 and you know, some people took the position well, you can just learn it. 00:52:20.719 --> 00:52:23.436 Like if you're in europe you just have to learn that you know, people 00:52:23.469 --> 00:52:29.206 have different accents that we did then send up a program, set up a 00:52:29.239 --> 00:52:34.956 program where they had to take a certain test, a spoken test to prove that 00:52:34.989 --> 00:52:39.006 their english was understandable. And that was another big change. Other 00:52:39.039 --> 00:52:43.856 schools did that too. American girl would come to me, I mean I dealt a lot 00:52:43.889 --> 00:52:49.497 with american girls who would wanted advice from me, you know, and I knew 00:52:49.530 --> 00:52:53.387 what was going to happen if an indian student most of the time as an 00:52:53.420 --> 00:52:56.876 american girlfriend when when he goes home that's over. And of course the 00:52:56.909 --> 00:53:01.517 Saudi arabians too. I mean they just, the family would let them marry an 00:53:01.550 --> 00:53:08.577 american girl and that was very hard to share with with the american 00:53:08.610 --> 00:53:12.617 student. And sometimes foreign students came to me that really liked an 00:53:12.650 --> 00:53:18.967 american or thought he liked her, but he was a little conflicted because 00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:22.997 he said, you know, I really like her a lot, but we all knew that she was 00:53:23.030 --> 00:53:26.577 going to give him permanent residents, you know, and I don't want her to 00:53:26.610 --> 00:53:32.356 think it's that and that would, you know, I would explain that. Well, you 00:53:32.389 --> 00:53:35.997 know, people like each other for different reasons and if you really like 00:53:36.030 --> 00:53:39.747 her, what does it matter if you also get a permanent residence? You're not 00:53:39.780 --> 00:53:43.117 marrying her for that? 00:53:43.150 --> 00:53:46.376 And you know, it's not any worse than marrying someone for their looks or 00:53:46.409 --> 00:53:49.916 for their money. Right? 00:53:49.949 --> 00:53:56.217 This brings up the issue of undocumented students. Students. 00:53:56.250 --> 00:54:00.307 What can you tell us about that? Well, it was kind of an interesting 00:54:00.340 --> 00:54:06.396 experience for me because we dealt with F1 students and we actually theory 00:54:06.429 --> 00:54:10.977 in theory, we're responsible with them. And if immigration checked with us 00:54:11.010 --> 00:54:15.787 and if they had the proper papers, we had to tell them if a student was 00:54:15.820 --> 00:54:19.626 what we call out of status, you know, that was full time or was working 00:54:19.659 --> 00:54:23.407 illegally or something because we tried to get never having to do that. 00:54:23.440 --> 00:54:26.947 They had to have a subpoena to get the information because of the buckley 00:54:26.980 --> 00:54:33.186 amendment. But when we found when students who were not ours, but we're 00:54:33.219 --> 00:54:38.697 either illegal or didn't have the right Visa, they were working in human 00:54:38.730 --> 00:54:43.546 through human resources and we told them about it and you know, kind of 00:54:43.579 --> 00:54:47.517 let them know because an institution is not supposed to have people that 00:54:47.550 --> 00:54:52.086 are not allowed to work, they didn't really like it. You know, they didn't 00:54:52.119 --> 00:54:55.856 really want to know about it. That was kind of interesting to me, very 00:54:55.889 --> 00:55:02.606 good. It's like for example when international students all had to have 00:55:02.639 --> 00:55:05.717 health insurance, 00:55:05.750 --> 00:55:09.287 a lot of them would because so they would be covered. That was a 00:55:09.320 --> 00:55:13.776 requirement, but they were not eligible for access the access program 00:55:13.809 --> 00:55:17.626 because they were not citizens and they would go down there and get it 00:55:17.659 --> 00:55:21.356 anyway and you know, we told them, you know, you're not allowed to do that 00:55:21.389 --> 00:55:25.367 , but you know, nobody did anything about it. And then as things became 00:55:25.400 --> 00:55:28.956 stricter and you know, I felt we had to protect the institution because 00:55:28.989 --> 00:55:33.296 they're not supposed to do that and I talked to some of the people down 00:55:33.329 --> 00:55:37.506 there, they also kind of didn't want to know about it, you know, and so I 00:55:37.539 --> 00:55:41.706 learned, you know, I just learned to work with the system, you mind your 00:55:41.739 --> 00:55:46.506 own business, you do what you can to do things right, you inform people, 00:55:46.539 --> 00:55:54.307 but that's about it, you know, which was kind of a dilemma for me. 00:55:54.340 --> 00:55:59.856 I had one student from Libya, very nice students, very friendly students 00:55:59.889 --> 00:56:04.497 and you know, we would always entertain our office, a real personality 00:56:04.530 --> 00:56:08.336 and then he came to me once and said, can you help me? Professor has 00:56:08.369 --> 00:56:11.117 accused me of cheating 00:56:11.150 --> 00:56:16.997 and I think it was a math professor and 00:56:17.030 --> 00:56:20.436 you know, I was kind of because he was so nice and all that, I just 00:56:20.469 --> 00:56:25.046 totally trusted him and I called the professor and said, you know the 00:56:25.079 --> 00:56:28.936 students just wondered if if you could reconsider this whole thing again, 00:56:28.969 --> 00:56:32.506 I didn't say he wouldn't have cheated or anything like that, but and I 00:56:32.539 --> 00:56:37.666 didn't usually do that, but I felt well in this case it's probably 00:56:37.699 --> 00:56:43.296 justified. Well later on, some students told me well he totally cheated, 00:56:43.329 --> 00:56:47.847 you know, but he just didn't feel any responsibly responsibility towards 00:56:47.880 --> 00:56:52.077 me, even though I I thought we were friends. You know, he felt well if I 00:56:52.110 --> 00:56:56.296 can help him help him, that's good enough for me. And that didn't keep him 00:56:56.329 --> 00:57:02.307 from later on to ask me to write him a recommendation. You know, it's just 00:57:02.340 --> 00:57:07.657 you know, we are not part of their world, their their cultural world and I 00:57:07.690 --> 00:57:11.896 think that's going to be like that for a long time. 00:57:11.929 --> 00:57:14.597 Are there any students, 00:57:14.630 --> 00:57:22.577 very prominent citizens in the world people we wouldn't know. Well, I 00:57:22.610 --> 00:57:29.097 don't know if if you would know, but about a year ago, Christine called me 00:57:29.130 --> 00:57:35.796 and she said whether I could come to definition because one of the 00:57:35.829 --> 00:57:40.206 I don't know if he was the Sultan or the Minister or something, but he was 00:57:40.239 --> 00:57:44.106 formerly a student at A. S. U. And he had remembered me and he measured me 00:57:44.139 --> 00:57:49.097 so she wanted me to come down, you know, there was an event that honored 00:57:49.130 --> 00:57:53.736 big big contributors like the I don't know if you know the Melikyan for 00:57:53.769 --> 00:57:58.017 example who I know very well by by coincidence and some other people that 00:57:58.050 --> 00:58:03.427 got an award of course, you know, he was from Dubai, I think he was from 00:58:03.460 --> 00:58:08.506 Dubai, he was not from Saudi Arabia or kuwait and so I was supposed to 00:58:08.539 --> 00:58:12.026 kind of make him feel comfortable and he turned out at the end, we set at 00:58:12.059 --> 00:58:17.276 the same table as the president and him and and some other people, so that 00:58:17.309 --> 00:58:23.427 was, I don't really know or we had the prince once. He he was in political 00:58:23.460 --> 00:58:30.086 science, he was a grandson of one of the thousands from United Emirates 00:58:30.119 --> 00:58:33.776 and he was a good student, He did very well, but I don't know what 00:58:33.809 --> 00:58:39.307 happened to him now, you know, and of course the the emir of the United 00:58:39.340 --> 00:58:44.106 Emirates has like 50 or 100 grandsons, you know, they have many wives, so 00:58:44.139 --> 00:58:50.646 they have many grandsons, but that was a nice experience. And he came, you 00:58:50.679 --> 00:58:54.296 know, he came with a big white limousine and bodyguards and everything, 00:58:54.329 --> 00:59:01.287 you know, he's totally protected. 00:59:01.320 --> 00:59:04.967 I have covered this, but what are some of your best memories while you 00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:07.986 were at issue 00:59:08.019 --> 00:59:13.956 well and something Well that's kind of a memory that not necessarily 00:59:13.989 --> 00:59:17.427 academic, but you know, we worked a lot of responses and the Arabian 00:59:17.460 --> 00:59:21.657 american oil company was a huge sponsor, you know, which they sponsored 00:59:21.690 --> 00:59:25.467 all these students from Saudi Arabia and we worked very well with them, 00:59:25.500 --> 00:59:29.927 but we, you know, we bent over backwards to help them because they were 00:59:29.960 --> 00:59:34.236 you know they really took care of their students, they met with advisers 00:59:34.269 --> 00:59:39.026 and they always wanted to meet with the higher ups. You know I mean 00:59:39.059 --> 00:59:44.046 talking at the President's level and so they you know we could not always 00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:47.677 do that so they understood that so they would always organize those 00:59:47.710 --> 00:59:50.986 wonderful dinners. They would take us to the phoenician. You know 00:59:51.019 --> 00:59:54.776 Christine came out and a few comes sometimes the president came in all the 00:59:54.809 --> 01:00:00.447 department chairs and that helped create that real positive relationship 01:00:00.480 --> 01:00:05.236 and also an appreciation of the student and Aramco because they really 01:00:05.269 --> 01:00:11.097 wanted they were stricter in their requirement. And so that was always fun. 01:00:11.130 --> 01:00:17.606 You know that was a long time ago. Do you remember going over well Saudi 01:00:17.639 --> 01:00:24.827 Arabia hosted this one event that you went to and I went to um and we 01:00:24.860 --> 01:00:29.977 brought back a lot of literature but as I recall 01:00:30.010 --> 01:00:34.137 thomas who was a former registrar, he was involved with a lot of the Saudi 01:00:34.170 --> 01:00:39.126 Arabian students but we went out to this event wasn't Ellen. Yes it was in 01:00:39.159 --> 01:00:44.907 L. A. And I mean it was a real sales job. Oh yeah they just want to be 01:00:44.940 --> 01:00:50.767 accepted and liked you know they want well basically because they want us 01:00:50.800 --> 01:00:54.686 to treat the students well and of course we did that but beyond that I 01:00:54.719 --> 01:01:02.477 think you know they know there's a lot of prejudice so maybe fear or 01:01:02.510 --> 01:01:07.977 not being sure how they should relate to them. So they want to win our 01:01:08.010 --> 01:01:14.807 positive attitude I guess. And also at conferences they would the kuwaitis 01:01:14.840 --> 01:01:19.026 to, they would host those huge parties, you know, where everyone was 01:01:19.059 --> 01:01:24.876 invited with food and everything. Yeah, 01:01:24.909 --> 01:01:29.977 as a retiree now, how do you spend your time? Well, I do a lot of things. 01:01:30.010 --> 01:01:33.947 The first thing I did right away I went to actually an S. U. Sponsored 01:01:33.980 --> 01:01:39.177 trip to Romania. That was a nice experience. And then for the first two 01:01:39.210 --> 01:01:46.776 years I helped these are host family organization to sponsor 01:01:46.809 --> 01:01:51.637 welcome receptions at my house. So you know, that was nice of seeing them 01:01:51.670 --> 01:01:54.856 when they came and but then after a while that petered out when I did 01:01:54.889 --> 01:01:59.447 other things that we got to bird watching, my Children had given me a 01:01:59.480 --> 01:02:05.526 subscription to the phoenix symphony and opera. So I did a lot of that and 01:02:05.559 --> 01:02:11.436 then MCC they have an organization where we are to the auspices of MCC, I 01:02:11.469 --> 01:02:16.456 should say it's called New Frontiers learning and requirement in 01:02:16.489 --> 01:02:20.017 retirement where we teach the classes, you know, we teach the classes but 01:02:20.050 --> 01:02:25.287 we can use the facilities I got quite involved with with that, I 01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:29.787 volunteered and I made a presentation on Mozart. Well, you know, I never 01:02:29.820 --> 01:02:34.287 did study Mozart, but I was very interested and after I went to CUBA, 01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:39.137 which my with my grandson, which is legal by the way that you can go to 01:02:39.170 --> 01:02:44.287 CUBA. If you go with an organization, I gave a presentation on CUBA and 01:02:44.320 --> 01:02:48.967 what's going on there. So it's very enriching to be part of that. I know 01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:55.117 issue has that too. But I think it's just not as well known to the people 01:02:55.150 --> 01:03:00.666 who are not associated with A. S. U. Uh huh. Thank you very much Suzanne. 01:03:00.699 --> 01:03:05.197 We worked together for some years and I this has been educational for me 01:03:05.230 --> 01:03:09.046 as well even though we worked closely together and I enjoyed hearing some 01:03:09.079 --> 01:03:15.467 of your comments and stories. Well, thank you so much. It was actually 01:03:15.500 --> 01:03:22.807 very good for me to working with you and also later without carter 01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:28.776 Dean of student life because you you let me do what had it had to be done. 01:03:28.809 --> 01:03:33.117 You know, you you knew you didn't know about immigration. That's true. So 01:03:33.150 --> 01:03:37.396 you know, you didn't interfere but you supported us when we needed it. And 01:03:37.429 --> 01:03:42.347 that's really the best conditions you could work under. Thank you. Thank 01:03:42.380 --> 01:03:47.206 you for letting us Suzanne comment on this record because she was there 01:03:47.239 --> 01:03:52.407 during some of the formative years. And To imagine 200 students when you 01:03:52.440 --> 01:03:57.026 came and where we are now, I mean that really illustrates the importance 01:03:57.059 --> 01:04:01.856 of international students the Arizona State University and all these high 01:04:01.889 --> 01:04:06.690 tech jobs. So but thankyou