Students grumbling about fulfilling the extensive Tufts language requirement may want to reconsider.
This past month, the Committee for Economic Development (CED), an independent organization aimed at promoting American economic growth, released a report entitled "Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security."
The study harshly criticized the state of foreign language and cultural study in the United States today, from the kindergarten to collegiate levels.
"America's continued global leadership will depend on our students' abilities to interact with the world community both inside and outside our borders," the study's executive summary read. "CED believes that the international studies and foreign language education of all of our students must be strengthened to prepare today's students to become tomorrow's global leaders."
Arabic Lecturer Rana Abdul-Aziz, a graduate student at Tufts' School of Arts and Sciences, agreed.
"I received most of my elementary, middle and high-school education in the United States, and in those years I took two classes dealing with non-U.S. history," Abdul-Aziz said. "A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach needs to be introduced to the American classroom."
Abdul-Aziz has found that the same lack of international education that characterized her primary schooling still exists today. When student-teaching at a Boston public school, Abdul-Aziz discovered that "students only receive a year of exposure to non-U.S. history. In the end, students learn two disposable sentences about entire civilizations, cultures and events without any deep, nuanced understanding."
The report also emphasizes the connection between the economy and the international knowledge of U.S. businesses.
"Globalization has enabled companies in less-developed countries to compete directly and in a more level playing field with American businesses," the report stated. "Therefore, U.S. companies of all sizes must succeed in overseas markets; which requires having employees with knowledge of foreign languages and cultures, as well as overseas experience."
Economics Professor Enrico Spolaore agreed with the report. "The most successful societies in the long run have always been those most open and curious about the rest of the world, those most willing to learn from other people and cultures," he said.
"Economic research shows that there are large benefits from reducing linguistic and cultural barriers across countries. People who can communicate across language and culture barriers have a clear competitive advantage," he said.
The CED's report emphasized the importance of less-commonly taught languages - including Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Farsi/Persian, Russian and Turkish - in order to succeed economically as well as aid national security.
According to the report, "the FBI and other federal government agencies lack sufficient linguists to translate intelligence information in these critical languages in a timely manner."
Abdul-Aziz said that the popularity of Arabic has been increasing at Tufts. "The Tufts Arabic Program has been growing and flourishing over the last few years," she said. "I think it will continue to do so, especially if it forms strong ties and collaborations with institutions in the Middle East."
"I started taking Arabic because I went to Israel in high school, and decided I had gotten a one-sided point of view," junior Aaron Narva said. "But more importantly, I thought it seemed relevant because of the conflict in the Middle East going on right now."
Many students have found that learning foreign languages, especially Arabic, is increasingly important because it is applicable to future international economics, politics and national security.
According to Narva, however, the Arabic he has learned at Tufts is Modern Standard Arabic - which is not colloquial, a fact that he discovered while studying in Cairo last semester.
"I took Modern Standard Arabic for two years at Tufts. When I studied abroad in Egypt, I learned the colloquial Egyptian Arabic. But I can only speak in colloquial Arabic in Egypt," Narva said. "What they taught me here is hard to use in terms of social interactions or business interactions but is useful in reading documents and translations."
"This limits my future prospects, but I would still like to pursue something and use my Arabic in the future," Narva said.
Studying Arabic has even become popular in some high schools.
"For example, Charlestown High School in Boston has recently started an Arabic program which it hopes to continue and expand next year," Abdul-Aziz said.
Despite this recent growth of Arabic language programs, the report harshly criticized the state of foreign language and culture education at the collegiate level. "Fewer than 10 percent of college students enroll in a foreign language and only one percent of undergraduates study abroad," the report noted.
Spolaore said that Tufts is far ahead of the game when it comes to the report's recommendations. "We are fortunate at Tufts, because historically Tufts is one of the most internationally-oriented institutions of higher education in the United States and has consistently emphasized international and global contents," he said.
"Of course, one should always strive to do more, and I hope Tufts will continue to increase its offering of courses on languages and cultures from all over the world," he added.
The CED was displeased with the level of foreign language study in the primary and secondary levels as well. "Only about one-third of seventh to twelfth grade students - and just five percent of elementary school students - study a foreign language," the report said.
One of CED's suggestions for improving that percentage is that "colleges and universities should form partnerships with elementary and secondary schools to make available their expertise in international studies."
Abdul-Aziz encouraged the idea of a partnership between Tufts and local public schools. "Universities like Tufts should have curriculum libraries open to schools, host and hold public school teacher trainings, and have professors regularly speak at public schools," she said. "With the technology available in many classrooms today, professors can have a conference call with students over the phone or even meet with them over a Web cam."
