Addressing Educational Disparities in Nicaragua, Iowa City, Iowa, August 30, 2011

- [Thais Winkleblack] Today's program has been made possible in part through the cooperation of Midwest One Bank and the US Department of State. Now I wish to introduce to you Jean Lloyd Jones. Many of you know Jean well, probably better than I do even. She's a long time member of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council and she's been very active with the council on international visitors to Iowa Cities. Jean Hall Loyd Jones attended the University of New Mexico and Northwestern University, earning her BS degree in 1951. She received a masters degree in history of US foreign policy from the University of Iowa in 1971 and another masters in conflict resolution from Antioch University in 1997. She has served in both the Iowa House of Representatives and the Iowa senate, and as president of the League of Women Voters of Iowa, as well as many organizations and is a well known feminist and pacifist. Recently, Jean co-founded an organization called 50/50 in 2020, the goal of which is to achieve political parity for women in Iowa by the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage which will occur obviously in 2020. Jean is actively involved in professor Harrison's visit to Iowa City and so it is my pleasure to turn over the mic to Jean to introduce today's speaker, Jean. - [Jean Lloyd Jones] Thank you Thais, I didn't know the introducer would get an introduction, thank you. For the past 70 years, the United States Department of State has been bringing visitors from all over the world to the United States for an intensive three week work study session, and four or 5,000 people a year have been coming to the United States. To celebrate the 70th anniversary, the state department's International Visitor Leadership Program has cooperated with the National Council for International Visitors which is Civic's parent organization and created a very special tour called the Gold Star Tour, alumni reconnecting with the world. It's the first time the State Department has ever done this. Invited people back for a second visit. They selected 18 alumni based on significant achievements that these people have made in their own countries after their first tour here. And we have the good fortune to welcome today's speaker, Professor Carroll Ray Harrison, who visited us in 1998. And he has been chosen as one of these distinguished visitors to return. Professor Harrison received his undergraduate degree in economics from the University Catolica of Pelotas, Brazil in 1972. He earned his master of science in agricultural economics from the University of San Judas Tadeo Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil in 1983 and a second masters from Anares University and the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua Leon in 2000. Professor Harrison is the co-founder of the first university on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua called Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University, or BICU for short, where he currently serves as director of university extension and research. He was vice president of BICU in 1998 when he first visited the United States. He was especially impressed by the community college system in this country, and envisioned how such a system might impact the economically depressed areas and ethnic communities in Nicaragua. In 2001, as a direct result of his experiences in this country, professor Harrison launched a sustainable community college project for the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, founded university extension programs, and developed a new academic program, the first of its kind, in marine biology at BICU. The programs that professor Harrison created have changed the lives of countless young students in underserved communities throughout the region. Please join me in welcoming professor Carroll Ray Harrison. - [Carroll Harrison] Good afternoon everybody, thank you Jean. First of all, I must say I apologize if I make mistakes in my English. The language of my country is Spanish, and I was refused an interpreter. So I'm going to try and do my best. As you see, my name is Carroll Harrison. I am from Bluefields, Nicaragua and I work for the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University in Bluefields. This university was created in 1991 to serve the indigenous population of the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua and some Afro-descendant communities which didn't have the privilege to nor the means to go to a university in Managua or elsewhere. I am here thanks to the IVPL program. I first came to the United States and visited Iowa in 1998 along with three other Nicaraguans, one woman and three men. We were from four different universities, each of which received funds from the government of Nicaragua. In that first visit to the United States, one of the places I visited was Iowa City. And in Iowa City, we the group, we visited Kirkwood Community College. Kirkwood Community College was like an eye opening for me. Seeing the short academic programs that it has, because in Nicaragua a program or programs are rather long. It takes about six years to achieve a master, to achieve pardon a bachelors degree or an engineering degree. Seeing these programs of two years, I thought oh, this is very good for my country which is a very poor country. And if we could put students out in two years, it would be very good for us in terms of time and cost. When I returned to my country, I looked over the bylaws of the university and I saw that when the bylaws were made, one of the priorities were short programs, but along the way things were changed. So there I started speaking to some of my colleagues and showing them the advantage we would have if we could make some shorter programs. Well, some of them were convinced and we started some short programs. Now we have seven short programs such as Jean said, marine biology, we have business administration, we have agroforestry, mining, and so forth. The majority of our careers has to do with the natural resources that we have in the region. The population that we serve, as I said, indigenous people and Afro-descendants are very, very poor and they live in underserved communities so the university had to go and try to finance these people to finish their high school education, and then further on take them to the university. Now we are working with them. The university has grown a lot. The sixth of June we celebrated our 20th anniversary, and beside the campus in Bluefields we have six other extensions all trying to work with these communities that I mentioned. The population of the university in total is over 8,000 students. It's not a big number for a universities like in the states, but it means a lot for us on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. We plan to continue working on short programs, so when I was called in around January, from the embassy in which they told me that I was invited to come again to the United States to participate in the gold star members. At that time in January, I didn't accept. I told them I couldn't because I had a trip to Brazil where I studied, where I married, and where one of my daughters and granddaughters live. So said okay, so I went to Brazil. When I came back in February to Nicaragua, they asked me are you willing to go now? I said, I said yes. They said and in your previous visit, is there a place that you would like to revisit. I said yes, Iowa City okay? They said why? I said why well there, I saw something which has been of great importance to me which is the Kirkwood Community College, so I'd like to go again and see what they are doing at Kirkwood, get some more ideas, speak to other people, and that have extension programs and see how we can work on with our education programs in Nicaragua. So I'm here, I visited, lots of authorities. I visited Kirkwood. They took me around the campus to see all what they are doing, what they have done. There's lots of improvements. Many thing has changed, which satisfy me and I hope with this experience I can also make some significant changes at my university. I'm not a man to speak much, so I'll say I'm very glad to be here in Iowa City. Thank you all for receiving me. I thank all the authorities that receive me and shared their experience and information with me. I know a lot more about Iowa City, about what has been doing here, and I can say at home I'll always remember Iowa City and the hospitality the people have shown toward me. Thank you very much. Yes, oh I have some slides, I forgot. Well this is a map of Nicaragua. You can see at the northern border with Honduras and at the south with Costa Rica, and we have both coasts on the Atlantic and the Pacific. And we have a very big lake with an island in which there's lots of tourism now. I am from the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, which is divided into two regions. The one in yellow is the north Atlantic region, and the south is the south Atlantic region. When I speak about communities, I'm speaking about all the little settlements that we have along the coast of Nicaragua okay? Where there are a lot of indigenous people and African descendants that do a little farming, but their income comes mostly from fishing. So marine biology was the first thing we thought of, okay? This is our thing. This is the Bluefields Indian and Caribbean University, okay, BICU, and these three people there means the different ethnic groups that we are serving okay? Which are indigenous people, Mestizos, the people that come from the interior Managua and so forth and the African descendants. Okay, this is the map of the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. The two biggest settlements are Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas which the Miskito tribe call now Bilwi, Bilwi. That's in Miskito. These circles here are the different extension programs that we have on the Atlantic coast. We have seven extension programs on the Atlantic coast. We only serve the Atlantic coast. We don't have anything on the Pacific coast okay? So these are Atlantic coast, and this is an island where you have a very, very good place for tourism. It has reefs and they do scuba diving and other things, so that is where we work. Our headquarters is in Bluefields and the second place is Bilwi and then we work in other places. Okay, universities. As I said, universities in Nicaragua generally take five years to get a degree, but when you finish the five years you have to do a work, or something like a thesis which usually takes you another year. So it takes you six years, sometimes some people get delayed so they come five, six, seven years to finish their studies. Technical courses in Nicaragua. We only have two universities that have some kind of short program. The International School of Agriculture and BICU. Our short programs, the shortest are three years programs okay? But as I say many of our students, they don't like the three years courses. In Latin American countries, if you aren't that means if you don't have a bachelor degree, or you don't have an engineering degree of some sort you are not considered because they think short courses is for a lower class population. So we have to work on their minds somehow to change the way they think. These are the technical courses we say given at BICU. Agroforestry, construction, business administration, nursing, marine biology, geology or mining, and currently we are in a program with the Ministry of Transportation from Nicaragua on a program preparing seamen. When I say seamen, on account of the high employment rate in Nicaragua, many of the young men, 100,000 of them go to sea to work on tourist boats around Miami and the Caribbean or on fish boats, so on account of the many accidents and things there was agreement with BICU to prepare these people to go to sea, okay? So those are some of the programs we have. Also I say communities where BICU is working, that was the start. Here we have some of the people from the communities as you can see, they are indigenous people. We call them Indians, Miskito Indians. Here, these are short programs that we go and give them some training in agriculture, some training in health because at the university we have, besides nursing, we have a medicine school. So people go. This girl there, she's a North American working currently with BICU in this type of projects. This is a program in which you're working with indigenous people in agricultural program. Here, also with indigenous people. You see they are playing with a snake. They play with dangerous things. We are accustomed to many things you aren't accustomed. The day of the earthquake in Washington, we were in a building. We were received by the authorities of the American Association of Community Colleges and the building start to shake. And my friend Matt, he got frightened. I say oh don't be frightened, that's just a little shake. Because in Nicaragua we are accustomed in Managua and Leon, you have many shakes sometimes in one day. We're also, Nicaragua is a country where we have everything that's bad. We have earthquake, we have hurricane, we have volcanoes, and we have worse. So we have everything, so all the Nicaraguans we don't get frightened so easily. Okay. See here, all these are in different communities. And this is some girls from a village doing their traditional dances okay? I thank you very much for listening to me and, thank you. - [Thais Winkleblack] Here's a question about some of the programming that happens at the university, wondering whether or not you have programs about parenting so that people can learn how to be better parents and whether or not there is a focus at all on helping develop younger children either through teaching teachers or teaching parents. - [Carroll Harrison] Well. We have a program for teachers and it's what we call... Educacion, okay I don't remember the name right now but we have a program to train teachers because a few years ago, most of the teachers in the region, they didn't have any training to be teachers. They just were teaching because they were hired to teach, so now we have a program to prepare them to be primary school teachers. Then those that approve can go on to be high school teachers and farther along to get bachelor degree to be teachers at the university. I must say that regarding training people to be better parents, we don't have anything in that sense. It's a good idea, but at present we don't have anything. - [Thais Winkleblack] Okay, thank you. A question, you did refer to this in your talk but we'd like to hear a little bit more about the financial aid that is given. How much does it cost for a student to attend Bluefields and how do you overcome the economic disadvantages that your students that you're targeting have. How is that addressed? - [Carroll Harrison] Okay, as I said before BICU is one of the 10 universities that received funds from the government. It's in our constitution that say that a certain percentage of the national budget has to be destined to higher education. So we receive that along with nine other universities. However, we're struggling that that fund is divided more how I would say. More equally among the 10 universities because four that are considered national universities, they are the ones that get the big cut okay? That's the biggest fund we have. We don't have much funds because we don't have a, something that I see here in the United States, donations. In Nicaragua nobody donates anything. They want to get donations. They want to get paid for everything, you know? So currently we are working, there's a department that is looking out for funds because what we receive from the state is already insufficient for us to continue okay? Maybe we have spread it out too much in seven places, but we aren't there because we want to be there. We are there because they ask us to be there okay? Okay what... When we talk about the tuition at the university, when people ask me how much they pay I say no, university is free. They say how free? I say because they pay only approximately $20 per semester at the university. That's all they pay. So that would practically be free, no? And many of the students can't even afford to pay that, so they get a complete scholarship from the university, yeah? - [Thais Winkleblack] Great, thank you. One of our audience members actually was in Bluefields. He says in 1965 I was in Bluefields for two weeks. It was a very small town. Please tell us about Bluefields today. I'm sure that as with Iowa City, having a university has a positive impact on the community. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that. - [Carroll Harrison] Well Bluefields is still small. It's still small. Only it has a very larger population because during the war, many people fled from the war zone and they went down to Bluefields. I think in Bluefields, education is well served. We have many high schools, we have lots of primary schools and we have two universities. Beside the BICU, we have another university that plays the same role like us, work with the indigenous groups and Afro-descendants by the name of Uraccan. Translated it means hurricane, but the letters see it's a university... A university of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. So we don't have many things, but I think in some things we have improved to the two universities, people getting educated. But some of the real things that we from Bluefields feel like we have lost, Bluefields was a very clean city with lots of gardens. Each person had their garden. Now that doesn't exist anymore, and we see on account of the Spaniards that came to Bluefields now it's a very dirty city because the municipality can't attend all the garbage that you have around town. So we're working on several plans to try to improve that aspect of the town, but it's still a small town. - [Thais Winkleblack] Well, a lot of people would tell you that Iowa City is also a small town, at least comparatively, so. So we have a lot in common, perhaps. - [Carroll Harrison] No for me this would be a big place. - [Thais Winkleblack] Big town. We're curious to have you tell us a little bit about how you shortened the programs. How is that achieved? For example, in marine biology to go from six years to three years, what's the methodology behind your programming there? - [Carroll Harrison] Well this was possible because I convinced many of the authorities to make a change. That wasn't done immediately with the students that were already attending the university, but it started with other students that were coming to the university. How we did it, we took out some of the subjects which we think was necessary. For example, we had a very big Spanish program okay? I believe that if you're learning Spanish, you have Spanish from in primary and secondary you don't need to study Spanish in the university. I saw that done in Brazil, where I studied. If you studied Portuguese, primary and secondary, university has nothing to do with Portuguese right? And things like that. Some subjects that we think, we thought weren't very necessary are they could be taken farther ahead if they wanted to continue their studies two years more to have a bachelor's degree. So we left some of the subject for the two years because we know now all the students would be contented with a technical degree, and they would want to continue so that's the way we did that. It has work, okay. - [Thais Winkleblack] On that note about it working, can you tell us about some of the success stories? You said that it's necessary to have higher education in Nicaragua in order to obtain a job or a good job. What kind of impact do you see, especially on these underserved communities where you're able to get people through university program and graduate? - [Carroll Harrison] We have these people that come from their communities to receive a university degree. But, it's a problem. It's I think in some ways it's a solution and some ways it's a problem because when they get a university degree, they won't be able to go back to their community because let's say a business administrator. There's no business for them to administrate, so they will have to stay in Bluefields, go to Managua, go to some of the bigger cities. So we think by having these short, technical courses or related towards the national resources we have a lot of natural resources. In fact, the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua has practically all the natural resources of Nicaragua yet we are the poorest in Nicaragua. So I think if these people can get some training, and go to their community, go back to their community and work on some of their natural resources putting some kind of improvement on their product, let's say industrializing some product or something, let's say preserving fish, shrimp, something like that, they can remain in their community, get a better income because they'll have a value added on their product and in that way they could contribute to the development of their community. Okay. - [Thais Winkleblack] Thank you. Well we have lots more questions, but I'm only going to ask you one more and then we'll let you rest and talk to people after our program. You mentioned that just being here that you've, you're feeding your ideas about what you could do when you get back. Can you tell us maybe you probably haven't had enough time to fully develop an idea, but can you tell us a little inkling about what direction you might want to head when you go home? - [Carroll Harrison] Well as I said here, I've spoken to people at Kirkwood. I've spoken to people all around, and I've seen the academic programs, new academic programs that Kirkwood has. I have got some good ideas, so when I get back home I'll talk this over with my colleagues from the university and get in contact with some of these people to see in what we can work together. Maybe in some cases have a student exchange program. Maybe students of a medical school and so forth can go and do a practice in Nicaragua. There are lots of diseases to work on, and they will be in contact with another culture. They can learn some Spanish. So we have to sit down and see exactly what we're going to do. I don't know how far this thing will go. My goal, I don't know how far it will go, because in November we are having elections at the university. There the authorities are elected by a university council which has faculty members, deans, and it also have students on the board, the council. So depending on how the election goes, one of the candidates is the current director, university president, and the other candidate will be a very good friend of mine that I took him to BICU. So if he wins, I know I'll have support to continue with this program. If not, then we'll see how things go. But we expect to continue working toward this goal. Thank you. - [Thais Winkleblack] Thank you professor Harrison. Thank you, and thank you to professor Harrison. Just a reminder that you have been listening to professor Carroll Harrison speak on the topic of addressing educational disparities in Nicaragua at a meeting of the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, and I would like to again thank our sponsors, Midwest One Bank and the US Department of State. Professor Harrison, I know that you are here for many more important reasons than to speak to the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, but we really appreciate your time and as a very modest token of our appreciation, we'd like to present you with our mug. - [Carroll Harrison] Thank you very much. - [Thais Winkleblack] And thanks again, we are adjourned. Please return your name tags and we'll see you again soon.