[EDLING:2439] US: National-Security Concerns Spur Congressional Interest in Language Programs

[Francis M Hult]

Via lgpolicy...

> From the issue dated March 15, 2002
> http://chronicle.com/weekly/v48/i27/27a02601.htm
> 
> National-Security Concerns Spur Congressional Interest in Language Programs
> 
> By SARA HEBEL
> 
> Washington
> 
> Colleges hope the nation's global war on terrorism will translate into
> more Congressional support for programs that finance and encourage the
> study of foreign languages, especially those spoken in areas of the world
> that are key to U.S. interests. The terrorist threat has provided new
> momentum to those who have long argued that the United States needs to
> develop more experts in certain languages, such as Arabic, Korean, and
> Persian. Some campus officials, college lobbyists, and federal lawmakers
> say that increasing the number of people conversant in those languages
> also would better prepare the United States to compete economically,
> assist in international relief efforts, and build strong relationships
> with other nations. Much of the money that academics seek would come
> through Education Department programs that support the study of foreign
> languages. But some advocates also want Congress to bolster a
> controversial Defense Department program whose main focus is to enhance
> national security.
> 
> The academics and lobbyists say their case was made for them recently,
> when Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of
> Investigation, publicly pleaded for people to help translate documents
> written in Arabic and Farsi. The moment, some say, recalled October 1957,
> when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite.
> That event spurred federal lawmakers to put more money into supporting
> mathematics and science education. "We hope that it's that kind of time,
> that there will be a paradigm shift here," says Richard D. Brecht,
> director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of
> Maryland at College Park. "On September 11, the world didn't change at
> all. Our understanding of the world did."
> 
> Record Appropriations Increase
> 
> Congress already has shown a heightened interest in the foreign-language
> programs. For the 2002 fiscal year, lawmakers approved $98.5-million, a
> record 26-percent increase, for Education Department programs that support
> the study of foreign languages. President Bush has proposed an additional
> $4-million increase in his 2003 budget. Some of this year's new money will
> be used to double the number of fellowships for students pursuing advanced
> training in languages that are spoken in "critical" regions -- Central and
> South Asia, the Middle East, Russia, and Eastern Europe. The value of each
> fellowship will rise to $25,000 from $21,000. The appropriation also will
> finance three centers at universities -- which have yet to be chosen -- to
> improve foreign-language training for teachers. Each center will focus on
> the languages of one region: Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East.
> 
> Last week, members of Congress unveiled a General Accounting Office report
> detailing how four federal agencies, during the 2001 fiscal year, suffered
> from shortages of employees fluent in certain key languages. The report
> recommended that the agencies develop new ways to attract people with such
> language skills and to train employees to become more fluent. The report
> said that the Army did not fill 146, or 44 percent, of the 329 positions
> that had been authorized for translators and interpreters in five
> languages it considers crucial: Arabic, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Persian,
> and Russian. At the State Department, 21, or 6 percent, of the 370 posts
> for people who speak Arabic, Cantonese Chinese, Mandarin Chinese,
> Japanese, and Korean went unfilled. And at the Department of Commerce's
> Foreign Commercial Service, officials were unable to fill 39, or 55
> percent, of the 71 positions authorized for speakers of Indonesian,
> Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and Turkish.
> 
> The FBI, the fourth agency in the study, does not set goals for employing
> people with certain language skills. But according to the report, the
> agency has said that shortages of language-proficient employees have made
> it impossible to review or translate thousands of hours of audiotapes and
> pages of written material. Legislation is pending in the Senate that would
> seek to improve the training of foreign-language teachers and forgive
> interest on college loans for students who earn undergraduate degrees in
> certain foreign languages, such as Arabic, Pashto, and Russian, or in some
> fields of engineering, math, and science. The bill (S1799), which Sen.
> Richard J.  Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, introduced in December, also
> would authorize new grants to colleges to offer math, science, and
> technology courses in other languages. Senator Durbin and the bill's
> bipartisan cosponsors want more students with those skills to study
> languages so the United States can stay on top of innovations in science
> and technology; Mr. Durbin said that federal officials cannot translate
> some scientific documents that are available publicly around the world.
> 
> Finally, the bill would authorize $20-million for the Department of
> Defense's controversial National Security Education Program to start
> "national flagship" language programs at some universities. The programs
> would provide an intensive education in certain foreign languages deemed
> critical to national security. "It does our nation no good to have
> sophisticated weapons programs if we don't have the scientists to back
> them up," Mr. Durbin said on the Senate floor. "It does our nation no good
> to have expanded intelligence-gathering capabilities if what we retrieve
> sits untranslated. The United States must have the brainpower to match its
> firepower."
> 
> Administrators of federal foreign-language programs and college lobbyists
> say the record appropriations increase, the GAO report, and the pending
> bill signal that Congressional support for those programs has gained
> momentum, for now. Yet they also point out that the rise in spending still
> does not restore many of the Education Department programs to the levels
> at which they were financed during the cold war. For instance, the number
> of fellowships that are expected to be offered this year totals 1,473,
> some 37 percent fewer than in 1967. "All of this money is really a drop in
> the bucket," says Miriam A.  Kazanjian, a consultant for the Coalition for
> International Education, a group of 27 national higher-education
> associations that lobby for federal foreign-language funds. "These
> programs have been sorely underfunded for the past 30 years."
> 
> Meanwhile, the University of Maryland's Mr. Brecht and others say they
> were disappointed that Congress last fall did not approve the $10-million
> they had sought to start the "national flagship" language programs through
> the Department of Defense. Mr. Brecht's center is helping develop plans
> for that effort. Even without the money, he plans to begin two or three
> pilot programs by this summer, using $750,000 in funds from the Pentagon
> program. Mr. Brecht says it can be difficult to persuade defense officials
> to support the financing of an education program, but he believes doing so
> is appropriate and necessary. "We want to get agencies concerned with
> national security to pay the bill rather than the educational
> establishment, where there are so few resources," he says. "Our motivation
> is national security, not to improve education necessarily."
> 
> Worries About Perception
> 
> Students who receive scholarships or fellowships through the National
> Security Education Program, which was established in 1991 and also
> provides grants to colleges, must perform a period of national service
> equal to the duration of their award, usually by working at a federal
> agency that has national-security responsibilities. Students taking
> courses in the proposed flagship-language programs would not have to
> fulfill a service requirement unless they had also received scholarships
> or fellowships through the national-security program. Some university
> deans and members of international-studies groups continue to worry about
> the global perception of scholars and academic programs financed by the
> Defense Department. They say that such links could damage amicable
> relations between foreign institutions and American colleges and their
> students.
> 
> "We do not want to be perceived as an arm of the government with a
> particular agenda," says Anne H. Betteridge, executive director of the
> Middle East Studies Association, which since 1992 has urged its members
> and their institutions to refrain from using money from the Defense
> Department program. "I don't think it's possible to be too careful." Ms.
> Kazanjian, the international-education consultant, says colleges would be
> wise to seek funds through both the Education Department and the Defense
> Department. University officials could then choose which programs to use.
> "There's so much to be done and so many resources that we need,"  she
> says. "The more funds we can get, the better."
> 
> While the current outlook is good, advocates say they are still not sure
> if Congress and President Bush are deeply committed to long-term spending
> on foreign-language programs. Mr. Bush, for instance, has proposed
> eliminating funds in the 2003 fiscal year for a program that supports
> teacher training and foreign-language education at elementary and
> secondary schools. Some say such a move would hurt efforts to build a pool
> of students interested in studying other languages. J. David Edwards,
> executive director of the Joint National Committee for Languages, a
> coalition of groups that represent foreign-language professionals, says he
> holds out hope that September 11 may be able to spark another effort to
> improve national security through academic programs. "The mood's right,"
> he says. "On a good day, I would say it is possible that this would be
> another Sputnik."
> 
> http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Page: A26