Visa policy hinders research from Dallas Morning News

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

I found the following quote to be disturbing.

"American students tend not to go into the hard sciences," he said. "They
like law, medicine, business and things like that. In these kind of
industries, we've been dependent on foreign students for our best
scientists." 

Sounds to me like we need to stimulate our primary secondary schools to make
science more exciting and also to change the image of science as a place for
"nerds". But that has been true for years!!

We may well be on our way to becoming a second rate nation with respect to
technology.

Dave


Visa policy hinders research

11/24/2002 

By LINDA K. WERTHEIMER / The Dallas Morning News

America's move to shut the spigot on student visas after 9-11 has created a
brain drain for universities that rely on top foreign students to help with
scientific research.

Professors, graduate school deans and officials from national science
societies say hundreds of foreign students recruited to work on projects in
such areas as physics, math and petroleum engineering were kept out this
fall because they couldn't get visas.

Some gave up and went to other countries instead.

"Basically, some research projects are dying," said George McMechan, a
scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas who is missing eight Chinese
researchers this fall ­ a third of doctoral students he admitted. "There
aren't enough people to work on them."
 
Fred Olness, physics department chairman at SMU, said most of the program's
graduate students are from other countries.
(KIM RITZENTHALER / DMN)

There is no national count of how many students are missing from graduate
schools, but recent surveys of universities indicate few are exempt. In
Texas, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University
and the University of Texas are among those feeling the effects.

University and science academy officials, who acknowledge the need for
tightened national security, are pleading with the State Department to come
up with a speedier way to screen visa applicants.

"There has to be a balance between openness in the global scientific
enterprise and protecting ourselves," said Jordan Konisky, Rice University's
vice provost for research and graduate studies.

Dr. Konisky, a microbiologist, said he understands the government's concerns
about stopping students from taking sensitive research information back to
certain countries. 

"We have to worry about this technology that's just flowing back and forth
across international borders. This threat, no one likes it," he said. "But
we have to have some kind of reasonable response."

A State Department spokesman said the denial rate for visas has gone up for
all categories, not just for students. During the 12 months ending Sept. 30,
27 percent of applicants were denied, up from 23 percent in the previous
year, said Stuart Patt, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs.

"We've heard about the concerns from the scientific community, and we are
looking at how we can accomplish our national security responsibilities, and
at the same time, improve the visa process so there won't be undue delays,"
Mr. Patt said. 

Stuck in limbo 


THE EFFECTS OF BLOCKING STUDENTS
Some examples of how visa problems have affected universities:
€ The number of foreign scholars fell by 8 percent from fall 2001 to fall
2002, according to a survey of 77 universities by the Association of
International Educators.
€ Physics programs lost 21 percent of foreign students they admitted,
according to 79 universities that responded to a survey by the American
Physical Society.
€ A consortium of five universities, including the University of Texas and
Texas A&M University, lost about 70 Iranian students who were participating
in an energy exploration partnership with an Iranian oil company.
€ Texas A&M lost 22 of 66 petroleum engineering students admitted this year.
€ Research meetings have suffered because international scientists cannot
get visitor visas.
€ Texas Christian University's international student enrollment fell by 40
students. Most of the affected students were from China, India and the
Middle East.
€ A Chinese student returned to his country to get married this summer. He
still is trying to return to his classes at Rice University.
SOURCES: American Physical Society; Association of International Educators;
Dallas Morning News research The affected students ­ mostly from China,
Russia and the Middle East ­ were denied admittance to the United States or
were stuck in the approval process when the fall semester began. Many remain
in limbo. 

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, all applicants from seven countries identified
as state sponsors of terrorism have had to go through extra screening. Some
applicants from 26 other nations also get additional scrutiny, Mr. Patt
said. The visa process that once took two or three weeks now takes three to
five months. 

The American Physical Society, a national group based in College Park, Md.,
, surveyed 185 advanced-degree physics programs recently. The 79
universities that responded said 123 of 595 foreign students admitted for
this fall had been denied visas.

That's just a percentage of all students kept out this fall.

A consortium of five universities ­ UT, Texas A&M, the University of Kansas,
the University of Tulsa and Colorado School of Mines ­ say they lost about
70 Iranian students who were to have come to the United States in a
partnership with an Iranian oil company. UT lost all 11 recruits, and Texas
A&M lost 11 of 14. 

Some of UT's recruits told the university by e-mail that they would instead
attend schools in Norway, England and France, said Kamy Sepehrnoori, a UT
professor and graduate adviser in petroleum engineering.

Thomas Blasingame, the assistant head of graduate studies at Texas A&M's
petroleum engineering department, said the students would have helped U.S.
and Iranian efforts to extract oil and gas.

In all, Texas A&M lost 22 of 66 petroleum engineering students admitted this
year because of visa issues, he said.

Dr. McMechan, director for the Center for Lithospheric Studies at UTD, said
his missing Chinese researchers would have helped in the search for new oil
reserves. The center also hunts for oil that was missed in existing fields.

Losing even a few international students can damage a program, said Fred
Olness, chairman of the physics department at Southern Methodist University.

"This year, we got no foreign students," Dr. Olness said. "One or two more
years of this could virtually devastate the program."

SMU physicists are doing research in high-energy physics, including
development of high-speed computer modems for the future. The department
usually has 10 graduate students, most from abroad because that's where SMU
finds top physics students, he said. This year, it has just six.

"I feel like we're losing because we're missing the chance to train future
scientific leaders," Dr. Olness said.

Chinese concerns 


SMU is still trying to get 24-year-old Zhiling Chen of Beijing. Mr. Chen,
who has missed the fall semester because of visa problems, works in
high-energy physics, SMU's focus. Reached via e-mail, Mr. Chen said he began
applying for his visa in June. He has gone through three interviews and is
awaiting a fourth in December.

"I am very disappointed and frustrated," said Mr. Chen, whose father earned
a doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I
really do not understand what the policy is for the student visa application
at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. It breaks the dreams of many Chinese
students about the democratic system in the U.S."

Mr. Patt said the State Department pays special attention to Chinese
applications because of concerns about the transfer of technology.

The Sept. 11 attacks highlighted longtime problems monitoring students from
abroad. Several hijackers got into the United States to attend flight
school. Others were approved for student visas.

Dr. Konisky, the Rice researcher, said the government had little choice but
to crack down. 

"We all found ourselves in an impossible situation," he said. "The system
was so broken in terms of tracking. These students would come, they wouldn't
show up at school. Nobody knew where they were. Their visas had expired. The
State Department and the INS <[Immigration and Naturalization Service]> had to
take serious steps quickly, and they did."

Still, university officials say, they need international students, who staff
research labs, work as teaching assistants in undergraduate classes and act
as collaborators on research before and after they finish their degrees.

They are recommending solutions to the government, including giving more
resources to federal agencies that screen visa applicants.

Irving Lerch, director of international affairs of the physics society, said
the nation should work to protect the investments it has made in the
sciences. The National Science Foundation gave $3.6 billion this year to
universities for scientific research.

"The United States sees fit to make a huge investment in these
laboratories," Dr. Lerch said. "The success of the labs is tremendously
dependent on foreign investment and collaboration.

"We have to have some kind of security. Nobody is suggesting to throw open
the borders to anybody who wants to come."

The government also needs to give consular offices better instructions on
who can be admitted and what areas of science are of particular concern,
said Victor Johnson, an associate executive director at the Association of
International Educators in Washington, D.C.

"Because the government has not yet defined the criteria to describe what
they're worried about, they're tending to cast a very wide net," Dr. Johnson
said. 

"Anybody can get caught up in this, from a guy majoring in chemistry at UT
to a world-renowned researcher who wants to come to Cal Tech or MIT to
participate in the frontiers of research in physics."

Dearth of U.S. scholars


Some educators say the situation highlights another large problem that
exists within the nation's borders: the dearth of American students
qualified to fill research posts.

"Someday that faucet will be turned off for our colleges and universities to
bring in international students. Maybe it's just beginning," said Manuel
Berriozabal, a University of Texas at San Antonio professor who founded an
engineering program for middle and high school students.

"They're going to be sorry that there was not more attention paid to our own
students and growing our own talent."

Researchers said they have tried to recruit American students with little
success. 

At UTD, Dr. McMechan said scholarships for American students go unused.

"American students tend not to go into the hard sciences," he said. "They
like law, medicine, business and things like that. In these kind of
industries, we've been dependent on foreign students for our best
scientists." 

E-mail lwertheimer () dallasnews com


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