It's not often that university administrators like UB President John Simpson get big surprises in their schedules. With so many meetings to attend and people to talk to, there are few times when Simpson's workday isn't planned out down to the minute.
So when Simpson found himself two weeks ago at a high-profile summit in Washington D.C. and didn't even know who else was going until that morning, it was a rare day for UB's chief administrator.
Why the secrecy? Not only was the conference held at the State Department and co-hosted by Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself spoke to the 120 university presidents who were invited to discuss the state of international education.
"They wouldn't release the information because of security," Simpson said.
But by the end of the two-day summit, the real surprise was the outcome of the event, which Simpson and others say was a rare genuine conversation between the select group of presidents and the highest level of government representation.
Whereas summits like this one are often held just for the sake of having a conference, attendees said you could feel the determination from government officials to build a purposeful partnership to higher education.
"People were pleasantly surprised with the tone and the substance of the summit," said Don Betz, chancellor of University of Wisconsin-River Falls. It wasn't "we talk, you listen," he added. "There was an attempt at true dialogue and an attempt at an exchange of ideas."
The summit, at which President Bush announced plans to ask Congress for $114 million to boost the study of languages critical to national security, was of keen interest to Simpson, who has talked often about the national importance of higher education and the role schools like UB can play in the coming years.
"I am more than a little concerned about the competitive position of my county in the future and it is both in terms of the ability to get foreign students and foreign faculty...into the United States," Simpson said. "In general, my view is the more you can mix people up, the better it is for the education process and the research process."
While the United States no longer produces the numbers of American scientists that are critical to competition, Simpson said it is a different story in Europe, Australia, China, India and Singapore, which he visited last summer.
"They've figured out how important education at research universities is for their future and they're making it a matter of major national priority and planning for an investment in higher education, competing directly with what's established in the U.S.," he said.
None of the academic leaders were told exactly why they were selected to attend the summit, but Simpson speculated each was chosen for their interest or commitment to international education and language. Andrea Lee, president of the University of St. Catherine's in St. Paul, Minn., said Bush's language initiative generated a good deal of debate when the presidents were split into groups for discussion.
"The task that was laid out was probably a lot larger than the dollars laid out to accomplish it," Lee said, and some presidents disagreed with Bush's notion that Americans need to learn languages like Arabic and Chinese to better explain the U.S. way of life. The goal, rather, should be to promote an understanding of different cultures, she said.
At each discussion group, a number of state department and education officials sat in with the presidents to talk, listen, and take notes. Betz said there were many positive signs, like when his colleagues would ask questions about visa restrictions and actually get answers from government officials, but Lee said there was still a PR element to the summit's setup.
"Some of it felt like this was just a great way for the president to roll out an initiative in front of 120 university presidents, so they made a big splash about that," Lee said. "But the proof will be what will happen next."
Simpson agreed the follow-up would determine if the summit had the intended impact.
"This is the first time in years I've heard about the government making an investment through higher education," Simpson said.
Among other topics touched were the relationships between K-12 schools and universities, the inclusion of Spanish as a critical language, and how to reform study abroad opportunities for economically disadvantaged students.
That Rice co-hosted with Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling was a telling fact, Betz said. Having served as the provost of Stanford for six years, Rice has an academic background, and Betz speculated she was very much a driving force behind the summit.
"It was a fairly impressive showing," said Lee of the government attendees, which included Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, First Lady Laura Bush, and Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy.
Simpson, who was the only person invited from SUNY and only one of four from all of New York, said the summit was also an excellent opportunity to have a wide array of higher education institutions in the same place at once.
"It was valuable to do that because all of us will profit and suffer to the degree we have or don't have an exchange with international students," he said.
Even two-year community colleges were invited to the summit.
"That group of people would never have been at the same table at the same time," Betz said.
Although it is unclear if and how the government may again contact the summit's attendees, Lee said the lasting impact might lie in the connections the different universities made with one another. By itself, for example, Lee's small private all-girls school can't build an extensive program in Arabic, but with the cooperation of other schools from the summit, grander plans could possibly come to fruition.
Simpson said there were several people he met that if he wants to better understand of what's going on at community colleges or certain private institutions, he now has a wide array of contacts.
"It also widens their scope for them being able to contact me, and I know who they are and it's not a cold call," he said.
The summit's ultimate outcome remains to be seen, Simpson said, "but there was a sentiment expressed, as there often is at things like this, that this was a good idea, let's do it again."
