The Iraq Education Initiative, Iowa City, Iowa, August 26, 2010

- [Thais Winkleblack] Today's program has been made possible in part through the support of International Programs at the University of Iowa. I wish to introduce to you the Dean of International Programs at the University of Iowa and Associate Provost Downing Thomas. Many of you are familiar with Dean Thomas as he appears before this group on a regular basis and participates in many of the international activities in this community. While there are many accolades I could mention about Dean Thomas, the one that I can't help but mention, probably he gets tired of this, is that in 2005, Downing Thomas was named by the French government as Chevalier of Order of Academic Palms. And I just can't imagine that we've had that many knights standing at this lectern. So without further ado, I welcome Dean Downing Thomas. - [Downing Thomas] I keep having to remind everyone I got no horse, no sword as part of this. But I do have the title which is fun to talk about. Thank you and welcome. It's my honor to welcome Scott King, who until very recently served as Director of the Office of International Students and Scholars here at the University of Iowa. As you can see, those of you who are here, from his first slide, he was just promoted to Assistant Dean of International Programs. Please join me in congratulating Scott on his promotion. Scott has worked with international students since 1979, and has been here at the University of Iowa since 2003. He leads international student recruitment on campus. And for those of you who have walked the streets of downtown Iowa City, you may have noticed that we are welcoming our largest international student class ever, population ever: particularly undergraduates, and this is due in large part to Scott's efforts and to Bill Reisinger's support as Dean of International Programs bringing international programs over to this side of the river and into the heart of campus where international activities could be increasingly visible. And I think it's in large part due to Bill's support that this got off the ground initially. We're also seeing very large increases in study abroad. And we hope to continue that in the future. Scott has served in many leadership positions nationally with NAFSA the organization of Association of International Educators. And most recently in 2009 approached me about joining the Iraq Education Initiative. And I have to admit that when he first came into my office, I was maybe two or three months on the job, Scott. And Scott said, "I want to go to Iraq." And I swallowed and said, "Let's do this. "It's important, it's the right time, "and I will talk to the President of the University." And I did. And she was very supportive as well. So Scott has led this initiative, and we're seeing the first fruits of that this fall here on campus. And I will let him tell you about his experiences in Iraq and how that led to where we are today. So let me introduce Scott King. - [Scott King] Thank you, Downing. And since Iraq wasn't exciting enough, this fall I'm also going to Libya. Is it any question when I come into the country I'm one of the people they now send into the little booth where they blow the air and make sure you're not walking in with anything you're not supposed to be into the country. This is gonna be a little bit of a travelog and a little bit of a report on the program itself. I was hoping we would actually have a couple of our students here today. We have two students who've arrived so far. But as good scholarship recipients, they have ... Oh boy, you just love things like that. They have skipped, they have class instead. So they're going to class instead of coming here. Wanting to start off, this is part of what President Barack Obama said in his inaugural address and very appropriate. "On this day, we gather because we have chosen "hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict "and discord. "On this day, we come to proclaim an end "to the petty grievances and false promises, "the recriminations and worn-out dogmas "that for far too long have strangled our politics." I put that up there because I heard this from the U.S. Ambassador's residence in Baghdad. We happened to be there at that time. And we were at a reception that evening. And so we got to hear President Obama being inaugurated from Baghdad. And I often think that when I went to the caucuses at Hoover Elementary School here in January, never ever would I have dreamed that I was going to see our first African American President inaugurated while I was sitting in Baghdad, Iraq. So you never know quite where life's going to take you. Just a little bit about the education and background so we know where we're coming from. Iraq's higher education system was established very early in the century, 1921. It became free in the 1970s. There are two ministries that manage the education system which somewhat complicates working with it. Their first modern university was 1956. Currently, they have 20 public and 10 private colleges, and somewhere around 250,000 students in the country. At one point, it was really regarded as one of the best educational systems in the region prior to all the wars. Before the conflict started, they had almost gender parity in enrollment. In the Middle East, I think that would be seen as very unusual. Illiteracy was less than 10%, very high literacy. Dropout rates were the lowest. And they spent about 6% of their GNP and 20% of their government budget on education. U.S. percentages respectively, by the way, are 6% and 17%. So very close to what we were spending. It's about $620 per student for education. Then the First Gulf War and economic sanctions. The GNP spent on higher education plummeted to about half of what it was overall. The per student spending went from $620 to $47. Teachers salaries declined on that. Enrollment in primary school dropped to 90%. It was about 100%. The dropout rate reached 20%, and a huge gender gap. So this was the situation during the Gulf War and the economic sanctions. The current status in Iraq though is ... First of all, there is not a lot of data. Communication is still iffy. But in 2006, only about 46% of children were enrolled in elementary school. And only 28% of 17 year olds took their secondary school exams. And they estimated that 600,000 school children were displaced. So some background. Iraq has had a very tough time rebuilding its education system. So this is the initiative they came up with, The Iraq Education Initiative, which was announced in January of 2009. Got some pretty lofty goals. What they anticipate when it's fully operating is they're going to have 10,000 students per year for five years that will study primarily in the United States and Great Britain, but also in other English-speaking countries, and possibly others. They've talked about Germany, France. Language is the issue on that. They're trying to set up a system with about 70% of the scholarship holders studying at the undergraduate level, considering both Associates and Bachelor's degrees, with about 20% at the Master's level and 10% at the PhDs. Originally, in January of 2009, we were told that the pilot program was going to happen in fall of 2009. And I'll talk about this a little bit later, but many many complications. So actually the first students came late summer of this year. And now about 80 students are coming within the next month to the United States to study. So it's really just getting started now. Real lofty goals, though. I think we're all familiar that Iraq is a country with a lot of divisions: religious divisions, provincial divisions, cultural, ethnic, language divisions. The plan to help overcome those divisions was to allocate scholarships by region. If a province has 10% of the population, they will get 10% of the scholarships that are awarded. It's a way to try to make sure it's open to all Iraqis and not just those that tend to live in the larger cities where access is a lot easier. They're also making sure that the program is based on merit. Scholarship Committee is independent of the government, working on as much gender parity as it can, but just really trying to make it an open program that reflects all the diversity of Iraq. I would like to say that right now the program is focusing on university scholarships. But linkages in elementary and secondary education reform are also in the long term plan. As a matter of fact while I was there, I was talking with a number of university presidents, the Executive Director and me talked with them, about whether our College of Education might be interested in the helping through the reform process of the K-12 system, which I said, "Of course, we'd be very "very interested in doing that." Haven't moved to that yet, but College of Education, we have faculty that are aware that this is coming down the road. The other thing that was exciting in the announcement, it may be small but I think it has a lot of meaning is when this program was announced, we were also told that the coming year was going to see a doubling of the prestigious Fulbright program. They were going to double the exchanges from 35 to 70. And the way they were doing this is Iraq was becoming a full partner in the program and paying for the extra 35 students that would come under this. Fulbright programs really are designed to be a two-way exchange with full involvement by both the foreign government and the U.S. government. That had not been the case in Iraq. But they were very pleased that we were able to get through the funding, the support, to actually become our equal partner in the exchanges. Something that may not seem significant in numbers but I think is very very important in vision that they want this to be a true exchange. I have heard from schools in Iraq who would like our students to study abroad there. Not quite at the point of happening, but there are parts of the country that I don't think that that's that far off. City of Sulaymaniyah that we went to is a very safe city, has an American university there, and they would be very interested in linkages. So how did it all begin? Well, in November of 2008, we were among about 60 schools that were invited to participate in this initiative. I was actually in the Middle East at the time when I sent Downing the first note that says, "I'd like to go to Iraq." I'd like to know what your face looked like when I sent that. But they chose institutions that had a history of involvement in that region. We had been recruiting in that region for several years. And other schools that they felt would be interested in linking up on that. All the Big 10 schools were included in the list, by the way. Just have to say that. The only cost participants was gonna be airfare to and from Iraq. Finally though, only 21 institutions participated in at least part of the program. Very very small group that went. A number of my colleagues were told by their institutions no, it was too unsafe. We didn't want to take the risk. A number of my colleagues didn't feel they personally wanted to take the risk. At the forum, there was also participation but it was by the UK. But the UK schools participated through the British Council, their promotional organization for higher education. And I'll be very honest. Every time a speaker would get up and say, "And we'd like to recognize the institutions "from the United States and the United Kingdom," I wanted to get up and say, "There are no institutions from the United Kingdom here. "It's their professional staff." I didn't embarrass the institution. But I think there was a very different involvement. And I do think that made an impression on the officials. From Great Britain, it was the professionals. From the U.S., it was the front line people that work with students all the time. These are the schools that participated. And as you can see, just a few flagship institutions. And I'm gonna boast a bit, no other Big 10 institution. We were the only Big 10 institution that was represented there. But I was fairly pleased with the mix because if you look, there's a wide variety of public, private schools, regional institutions. I think it was a very good overview of the type of schools that are available for students who want to study here. So I'm gonna give you just quickly the schedule so you can see what we went through. First of all, this is our invitation to the Ambassador's house for his reception which I kept. Just so you know, eight o'clock Baghdad time was noon Washington. So it was right after the reception that we saw the inauguration. So the first thing of course was flying from Amman, Jordan to Baghdad. You can fly into Iraq from Amman and from Istanbul right now. I believe if they don't yet now, but soon going to also have flights from Dubai. We were on an airplane that was called Royal Jordanian Airlines. But it was actually flown by a company called AirQuarius, a charter company, and on a completely unmarked and obviously retrofitted Boeing 737. I'm pretty sure the flight attendants were armed. They didn't look like they had graduated from American Airlines flight school, but probably the military. And I've never been on a 737 where I felt like I was pulling G's on takeoff and landing. Very very powerful airplane, honest. One of the things we had to laugh when we looked around, there were 18 of us that were educators on the flights. And it was really easy to tell who we were aside from the military and the contractors. Just slightly different body styles. I also had to smile when the contractor who was sitting next to me gave me the great advice of I shouldn't go trying to parade around Baghdad at night. It wouldn't be safe. I sort of knew that. Quick direct flight. And again, sort of emphasizing the safety level, when it came time to land, we did three quick spirals around the airport and we were down there: down there, put on the brakes and get off the runway. Because of course, that was the time was most vulnerable. But then we were met right at the plane by the Prime Minister's protocol officer, and taken into his private reception lounge. And I have a picture of me sitting in the reception lounge. You know, even Delta Sky Lounges are not that nice. And the wonderful young protocol assistant who worked with us. So then we went from the airport to Al-Rasheed Hotel. Two vans with military escort and very heavily armed guards. We had somebody with a machine gun both in the front and the back of the vans on that. One of the challenges is this was only within days of when there had been the transfer of control of entry to the Green Zone from the U.S. to Iraq. So we got to the place we were supposed to enter the Green Zone, and they had no record of us. Now and we're with the Prime Minister's protocol assistant. Still couldn't go in. So the solution was what we later found out was a tour of some of the worst parts of Baghdad running around. And what was sort of scary in the aftermath is we had to do a U-turn and as we did, another vehicle ran right into ours. Now it didn't damage that, but only after that did we all say, "Now wait a minute. "Isn't that how they do suicide bombing?" But the vehicle kept on going. These were heavily armed vehicles, glass and all that. But I just think back and I think during my time in Baghdad, I went through more security checks and over more speed bumps than I've done in the rest of my entire life. Every place we went, there was a security check. And it was a pat down security check on that. And just a couple of pictures you can see from inside the van: the security barriers, the gate where we finally were allowed into the Green Zone. Well we stayed at the Al-Rasheed Hotel. Typically lost power three to four times a day. Only about half the hotels were inhabited. And I ended up in lucky room 1313. 1313, Al-Rasheed Hotel, Baghdad. I think it sort of sounds like a B grade horror film. But somebody did say to me, "Remember, two negatives cancel each other out." But it was just sort of an interesting coincidence to have that room here. And that night, we got to visit U.S. Embassy compound. That had been opened less than a month. It was very wonderful. But again, our primary contact was ... One of the things we kept being reminded though by the U.S. Embassy is we were not guests of the Embassy. We were guests of the Prime Minister. And so they had 100% control of our schedule and our security. U.S. Embassy officials were in the background. They helped out in many many little ways. The Cultural Affairs Minister brought an ironing board to the hotel for one of our folks who needed that. But very much behind the scene. We were guests of the Prime Minister, so always responsible for them. So the next day, we did have our first program. And there's the hotel. Very nice but very worn. I understand it's now undergoing renovation. On the list here, you can see the initiative had a lot of very high-powered officials there. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister on that. Full day talking about the program on that. What I really enjoyed though was we did have a rest time in the afternoon where they allowed us, it was free time. Show you a picture of that as well. Our official picture, about half of us with Prime Minister Al-Maliki. He is in the middle. I didn't deliberately push myself next to him. I just ended up there. And that's my story; you're not going to change that. What was really exciting though, the next day is we got to have an Education Fair for interested students. And we probably had 250 or 300 students who negotiated getting into the Green Zone, into the hotel, to talk to us about their goals of studying in the United States. I was really impressed with the majors. It wasn't just civil engineering, or even business. I had questions about education, about journalism, communication, what I would call majors that would help rebuild the society and not just the infrastructure. And I already mentioned that evening we had the reception at the Ambassador's residence. So the next day, we had a free morning. So we decided, a group of us, that we were going to go visit a memorial near the hotel on that. We were told that it was safe enough if we stayed along the roads. So we went out. Well, unfortunately we were not really paying attention so we wandered into an area that pedestrians were not supposed to be in. And two soldiers started walking towards us. They're the two you can see in the next picture here. They're trying to tell us in Arabic that we're not supposed to be there. But they seemed to appreciate the fact that these Americans were coming out of their comfort zone to see this memorial to their war with Iran. So they escorted us up there and showed us all around the memorial. It was an enjoyable time. However, the one thing we all had to laugh about is we had two women with our group. We all had our picture taken with the soldiers. The two women got pinched while they were taking the pictures. And one of them is a grandmother. So, she I think really appreciated it actually. So it was a lot of fun on that. And later that day we flew down to the city of Sulaymaniyah which is in the Kurdish region. We were flying there as the Deputy Prime Minister who was Kurdish was our host. The only way to fly though, we were taken right through the airport directly to the plane. Never had that happened before, but it was really exciting. So on Thursday, we had a very similar program in Sulaymaniyah. The one difference on this is that it was done in both Arabic and in Kurdish. So we had translations and we had to choose the channel we wanted to listen to. We listened to the English channels. Had of course some of the universities there as well. And then we did get to be tourists. An eight hour tour of the tourist resort of Dukan, very close to the Iranian border. Of course, we had about a dozen vehicles in caravan with a police escort, so we weren't exactly unobtrusive. Oh and I do have to show you. This is our guide in Sulaymaniyah. I had to compliment her on her choice of colors that day. I told her she was very very appropriate. Wonderful woman. She is now actually pretty much the administrative head of the program, the one who makes sure things get running. So my observations ... And this is obviously a picture someone else took there. But observations even without the wine. What I found was a strong commitment from the Iraqi government. The program will be open, and equitable along religious, ethnic, and gender lines. I already mentioned the majors that people were interested in: a wide variety that I didn't expect. It also appeared to have the buy-in of the existing Iraqi institutions. Because linkages between Iraq and U.S. institutions is one of their long term goals. So I had to kind of sit with five either presidents or vice presidents of Iraqi institutions. And I don't think they feel challenged by this. I think they see this as supplementing their opportunities and helping their institutions work. It was also a strong commitment from U.S. officials to make this work. The Embassy personnel came to all programs. We were seen as major cultural ambassadors by these officials. And they worked behind the scenes to meet our needs. Of course the highlight was seeing the inauguration from Ambassador Crocker's residence. I mean, there was a sense of seeing history while we were making history. And I still get excited when I think about that. And yes security was on everyone's mind. But we were taken care of from the moment we arrived. I mean my feeling was that like it was in the bad section of a place like Detroit most of the time. Didn't feel overly nervous. It was done in a fashion that didn't impede what we wanted to do even though in Sulaymaniyah we wanted to walk to a place a couple of doors down to do some shopping at a little shop they had there. And they did make sure we had armed escorts to walk down there. But very respectful of us as well. While spending the night in Amman on the way back, I started reflecting about the experience. And would I go back? And I still say in a moment's notice. And as a matter of fact, we were hopefully going back this fall, but that's been postponed until spring. It's designed to stabilize a country. It's a chance to really make history on that. I think it can bring the country out of years of isolation and truly as a full member of the international community. We're stepping up to be part of that. So since the forum the developments we've had. First of all, they widened the participation by the schools. The institutions that were present in Iraq did found The American Universities-Iraq Consortium. And if you look on the website, look at the first university that's on the list there. We have actually been touted as one of the premier institutions, not only because of the reputation, but we have worked on campus for an infrastructure that makes it work for them. So very very proud of that. One change that came about just mentioned and I'm not sure how they got away with this, but Ohio state system agreed to provide in-state tuition. They're the only ones that have done that. We're still getting the students though on that. That was a little controversy. They've got the funding approved. It's gonna be about $54 million a year from Iraq. And it is entirely Iraqi money. The other decision they made was to run the program locally. Originally there was gonna be more involvement by an American institution, but it was decided that it should be run locally. Their emphasis has been on doing things right and not doing things fast. And I really have appreciated that. There was a little pressure to try to get students here last fall. It was not going to work to have it done in a fair manner. There are complications and administrative structures: setting up from nothing an administrative structure that would get the applications, interview applicants, make selections, get the application. There was this whole process on that. And it really was very very difficult. Communication with parts of Iraq is still very very iffy. And it was hard to get applicants from the outside. It also helped here though I think to have this delay because we were able to prepare here. We worked out a process with the Graduate College that allows departments that wish to, and not a force to but wish to, to grant a conditional admission based upon academic credentials. And the students are held in English until they actually get the English scores, and sometimes other standardized test scores, to matriculate in the program. Again, it's optional. One thing we worked out to make sure also for departments is the students don't start counting as their students until they've finished their English courses. Because as we know, there's been a lot of emphasis on time to degree and success rate. But worked that out with departments. We already have a conditional program for undergraduates. That was not something new. One thing we were also a little concerned about was we have a lot of Iraq war veterans here who come with their own experiences. So we immediately got in touch with the veterans folks on campus to let them know we may have large numbers of Iraqi students here in the future. And not quite sure whether this will trigger memories. But also talking about the possibility of working with the veterans that served in Iraq who want to so something more to continue their experience. And we're hoping when students get settled here that we can get a veteran and a student to talk about their, I don't know if there's so much shared experiences, but the experiences they have in common. We're particularly thinking that could be very good in the public school system to go beyond what we see in the news. Here's a veteran who served in Iraq and here's a student who lived in Iraq during the war. What really happened beyond what we see on the news? And we've had a lot of publicity about it so that people haven't been surprised about what's going on. So it's really helped with our preparation. Our first applications came in in the spring. All were for graduate programs. They have been able to place, unfortunately, very few undergraduates. But we got a great pool of students. They've been admitted at about twice the rate of our general graduate student international pool on that. Half of the students that we got did receive admission. 11 were admitted; eight accepted our offer. Six have received visas to date and two are in process. We've got two who are here, three that are arriving tomorrow including a student who has with her husband, a six year old, a five year old, and she's pregnant. Very brave woman, and we're very excited to see her coming here on that. So we may have as many as eight students this fall. And this is out of a pool of about 80 that are coming altogether and what they're coming in. Some of the challenges. There has been a moving target as far as when students are coming. And a staff in Iraq that had a big learning curve. Little things such as when we say fly to Cedar Rapids, it doesn't mean you fly to Chicago and say take the bus. We've been having issues like that. But they've learned about how our education system is working, timelines, getting better at completing complete information on information such as dependents. Very good staff. I've met some of them. Young folks, about the age of Danielle who are just getting into the field and working very well. So where are we today? The first students have arrived. I was so pleased on Sunday to actually meet a student from this program. And they are engaging, if you get a chance to meet them. The two we have so far are articulate and enthusiastic. We've been given as little as 48 hours notice for some of them though. So it's been exciting. And again, I mentioned about Chicago, flying into there and taking a bus. We did solve that. What we're doing now. We're planning for the expansion of the program and increased numbers. We originally said we would probably be able to handle as many as 40 students without major challenges. And they do plan on having undergraduates in the very near future. So why I think this is important for UI. Well it does match our goals to have a strong, diverse international student population. Sponsored students such as these Iraqis help increase the diversity on that. And I think with the continuing misunderstanding about the Middle East and the Muslim world, importance of this population grows. And I probably don't have to remind you that we have a history with the Middle East. Students are amazed when I say the Mother Mosque for Islam is in Cedar Rapids. I'm not sure they always believe me on that. But there is a tradition here. It makes sense. National priorities to stabilize Iraq, we must have an educated middle class there. But many have fled during the conflict. So these students will go back. They've signed a bond to return. They will be brought home in summer so they don't lose their Iraqi-ness. We have been recognized as a leader in this program among our CIC peers. Downing tells me he goes to his meetings and his peers are jealous of where we've become. And usually it's Michigan State or one of those that get it. But we've been ahead of that on that. We've seen it from the Iraqi government. We're their primary institution. And in the media on that, we're seen as that. Very few research institutions have been able to do what we've done without sacrificing our standards. And by that, we've been able to attract excellent students. What we're working on in the future is scholarship programs from Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Middle Eastern Gulf States. And adding this year Brunei and Libya establishing scholarship programs. And we're one of a few schools that are very much involved in that. Just close with a statement that Prime Minister Al-Maliki made at an announcement of this in July of 2009. "We are celebrating the desire of the Iraqis "to continue to seek their education with this initiative. "Our universities were known for being "the most advanced universities in the world. "Because of all we've gone through, "we have lost what we had before." And they're trying to renew this. So that is a very quick trip through the program. I hope it has generated some good questions. And I thank you for your time. - [Thais Winkleblack] Okay, here's a logistical question. How are the students housed here in Iowa City? - [Scott King] Well right now the two who have come in are staying at the Iowa House until they find permanent housing. They are all coming in as graduate students now. So they are working on their own community housing. We've had great assistance. The Arab Student Association is working with them to find more permanent housing. The only one that we've been able to arrange anything special for is Saba, the mother. And we have found a place for her to stay out in Hawkeye Apartments. The situation she has is quite unusual, but they have been provided sufficient funding to stay at the Iowa House or some other facility for a while until they can find their more permanent housing. So they'll be out in the community like the rest of our international students. - [Thais Winkleblack] Here's a question about, you mentioned about English, being able to speak English or picking countries that were English speaking. And so the questioner asks whether or not Iraqi, is English the first choice for foreign language in Iraq? So are many of these students, they already have a pretty high level of fluency? - [Scott King] Pretty high level of informal conversational fluency I think I would say. One of the students who has arrived, and I wish he was here to talk with you. Wonderful young man, but we've already decided he's a bit of a chatterbox on that. And he speaks very quickly. But his grammar has a lot to work with. And like many of our students, he'll be able to hold conversations quite well. But they still need to work on writing, grammar. The academic English it needs to be stronger. - [Thais Winkleblack] Several questioners were thinking along the same lines in terms of how the the turmoil in the government in Iraq, how that could potentially affect your program. And specifically since you were invited as a guest of the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister were to ... If that office changed to another person, would that have a negative impact on the program? - [Scott King] Well, I don't think it will. The individual in charge, Dr. Zuhair Humadi, has lived in the United States for many years. He's very well respected across the political stream in Iraq, and has taken steps to really remove it as much as anything can ever be removed from the political process. The money was promised separate from the regular budget, has been approved from the regular budget. So it's not going to be affected by that sort of political changes. And I think the way they've been reaching out across ethnic lines, across provincial lines, also has a good influence on the program and the Parliament. With all the turmoil there, and I'm honestly not even sure if they finalized a permanent government now. But he has said that this is not going to change the program. - [Thais Winkleblack] Here's a member who would like to know just about the choices and you talked a lot about the diverse choices in disciplines. Could you talk a little bit more about those disciplinary choices and also perhaps if there's anything that you might know or have comments about various ethnic communities involved in The Iraqi Education Initiative. - [Scott King] Yeah. Well, I have a list here of ... Where is it? The disciplines we have right now, right now they're not as diverse. The group we have coming in now are in mathematics, pharmacy, chemical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, biology, dental public health, geosciences and immunology. So this first group is I think a little more technically oriented than planned. But the first group also is very much, very heavy on the graduate level. And I think that has an influence on the types of students that are coming as well. We were told that they just could not get a large undergraduate pool for this first round. It was much easier to work with the graduate studies on that. The students we have now, we do have three from Baghdad, but we've got two from Nasiriyah, one from Erbil, and the others are from Baqubah and Salah ad Din Province. So even this first group is somewhat diverse. Erbil is Kurdish. This is the young man that I talked about. His first language is Kurdish. I don't know if there will be any relationship between majors and the ethnicities. But I think at least the eight we have now we're starting to see some of the desires of broad, how do I say it, broad distribution across the country that they're hoping for. - [Thais Winkleblack] Then finally just a couple of quick questions about the students. One is whether or not they're allowed to work while they're here studying. And then just in general, I know that you've had such a short amount of time to even have the two that you have here with us now. But any immediate reactions from the students? - [Scott King] Well as far as work, their immigration status would allow us to give them work authorization, but our standard procedure, and this is true of all government sponsored students, is they would not be allowed to work on campus unless their sponsors agreed to it. And I don't believe the Iraqi program is going to agree to that. That is how we handle all sponsored students. They're expected to buckle down and get their English up to par and then start their studies. The two students I've met so far: sparkles in their eyes when they got here was my first impression. Sparkles in one of them's very bloodshot eyes. The poor boy just, he looked exhausted when we walked off the airplane here. Extremely excited at the opportunity and extremely proud to have been selected. I mean, they are seeing this as a great badge of honor that they have been selected as one of these initial scholars. Not complaining about having to take English which isn't the case of all of our international students. But I think they were told very clearly what they want. And one thing I have noticed of all the students we've accepted is as soon as they were admitted here, they immediately started corresponding with their academic departments, even though many of them will not be actually taking classes from a year from now. But they started writing to professors, asking questions, saying, "Here I am." And I think really taking some great ownership of this opportunity that's given them. And with all students, I think the ownership is the sign that they will be successful while they're here. But excited to be here, and just looking for the future. - [Thais Winkleblack] Great. Well thank you so much to Scott. And just a warm round of applause for his comments. I do want to make sure that you know that we would very much welcome any of the Iraqi students to come and join us for a luncheon. So we hope to see at least one of those students. As a modest token of our appreciation, we all know this ritual in this room, we would like to offer you one of our coveted mugs except that I would just like to point out that this is like hot off the press. Brand new design, so you're the first one to receive this. Thank you so much. - [Scott King] Thank you very much. Thank you very much. - [Thais Winkleblack] I only can wonder if I'll ever be allowed to have one of those. Again, thanks to International Programs at the University of Iowa for support for our programming. If you'd like to find out more about the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council, and I say this I suppose not so much to you here in this room although I invite you as well, but to those of you who are in our unseen audiences on television or radio. Please call our office at 335-0351. And Serolta, Danielle, Zach will be on the phone to help find out how you can get involved. Volunteer. Make a contribution. Become a member. So thanks again to all of you today. Please return your name tags. We are adjourned.