Return to Iran
Inside Higher Ed, DC
May 16 2005
Before the 1979 revolution in Iran, the country’s ties to American
higher education were extensive. Thousands of Iranian students enrolled
at American colleges. And American researchers maintained numerous
long-term projects in Iran, studying its archaeology, history, faiths,
and languages.
For 25 years after the revolution, ties between academics in the two
countries were negligible. In the last year, however, contacts have
started to resume. The presidents of Oberlin College, the University
of California at Davis, and the American University in Cairo all went
to Iran to discuss exchange efforts in the last year – and their visits
are believed to be the first by American college presidents since 1979.
In another first since ’79, Tufts University sent a group of students
to Iran, and is hoping to send another delegation soon. Oberlin,
following up on its president’s visit, is in negotiations to send
a student quartet to visit the leading music conservatory in Iran
– a trip that would have both cultural and political significance
because hostility to Western music in Iran is still strong in some
religious quarters.
These and other efforts are happening despite the immense challenges
of organizing exchanges with a country with which the U.S. has no
diplomatic relations and a recent history of considerable hostility.
Some of the initial trips took years to arrange, and took place
only after initial attempts were aborted due to visa difficulties,
tensions in the region or poor communication.
And organizers say that they fear any worsening of tensions could lead
to last-minute cancellations. But they say that the initial efforts
have been so successful that they are determined to expand them.
“What is starting to happen is quite extraordinary,” said Sherman
Teichman, director of the Institute for Global Leadership, at Tufts.
“We’re not trying to make policy or do anything official. This is
about intellectual engagement.”
Enthusiasm is also high in Iran. “Iranian academics would like to
expand their exchanges with all accredited universities around the
world, especially with the top American universities, where many of our
professors have received their degrees,” said Alireza Anushiravani,
head of the Office of International Relations at Shiraz University,
in an e-mail interview. “American universities are among the best in
the world.”
Not so long ago, it would have been difficult or impossible for an
Iranian academic leader to publicly praise American institutions in
that way. But despite that change in attitude, there is no official
American backing for the exchange efforts and international educators
say that most foundations are also nervous about supporting these
programs. So a few groups and colleges are moving ahead, largely on
their own.
The Search for Common Ground, a nongovernment organization that
promotes international conflict resolution, has been focused on Iran
for several years. The group sponsored a wrestling exchange in 1998
that was the first American delegation to visit Iran officially since
the revolution there. And the group spent several years organizing the
trip that included the presidents of Oberlin and American University
in Cairo.
Rebecca Larson, program manager for the organization’s U.S.-Iran
efforts, said the trip was designed to have the American presidents
meet with officials at several Iranian universities and to identify
possible ways for academic relationships to grow. “We want to
eventually promote some larger exchanges, but for now, it’s very
important that we got presidents over there. It’s important for them
to see it, and to picture what it would be like to have their students
participating in programs there,” Larson said.
Nancy Dye, the president of Oberlin, said that in all of her meetings
in Iran, she was moved by the desire of academics there for more
contact with students and professors from the United States. When she
met music educators at the University of Tehran, she said it became
clear that Oberlin – with its noted music conservatory – would be
“the perfect institution” to set up an exchange.
Dye’s idea is to send a student quartet from Oberlin to perform at
universities in Iran, and to then invite an Iranian group to come
to the Ohio college. Students are signed up for the project, and the
lengthy visa process is the main obstacle, but Dye hopes to see the
visit take place this fall. “It’s very slow work, but very important
work,” Dye said. “We are trying to create a path, which currently
does not exist, for more traffic between Iran and the United States
in higher education.”
Once trips are actually arranged, organizers report that they have
no difficulties in Iran and are received with great hospitality.
Teichman, of Tufts, said that students on his university’s “precedent
setting” trip toured many sites, had many meaningful discussions with
Iranians, and were treated well throughout.
Women who travel in Iran need to alter their dress, of course.
“Everyone asks me if I wore a hijab, and the answer is, of course. If
you are a woman and you want to go to Iran, you wear a hijab,” Dye
said. She added that none of the officials she met were hesitant to
deal with a woman who was a college president, and that she met many
university administrators (although not any presidents) who are women.
Teichman said that the Tufts student group included a Jewish student
and an Armenian student. Detailed biographies of students were provided
to Iranian officials in advance of the trip, and the students were
treated with the same respect as others in the program.
Faculty contacts are growing as well. George F. McLean, a professor of
philosophy at the Catholic University of America, was one of the first
American academics to start a regular relationship with an Iranian
university. He has been giving periodic lectures at Mofid University,
in Qum, since 1998. But in a breakthrough beyond his visits to Iran,
he was able to host nine scholars and clerics from Iran in a visit at
Catholic last month. He stressed that the discussions did not avoid
“the hard issues – we talked about Islam and political order.”
For some of the American colleges returning to Iran, extensive
relationships predate the Iranian revolution. For many years before
1979, Iran was the top provider of foreign students at the University
of California at Davis. The agriculture, engineering, and economics
program at Davis were particularly popular, and alumni of those
programs hold prominent positions in many academic departments in Iran.
Bill Lacy, vice provost for university outreach and international
programs at Davis, said that interest in Iran has remained strong
over the years because of those connections, and because of the
involvement of active alumni from Iran who stayed in California. Last
year’s trip by Larry Vanderhoef, Davis’s chancellor, was designed to
build on those ties.
As the chancellor recounted in a diary of the trip, Davis first
attempted to invite the president of the University of Tehran to
visit Davis, and when a visa was denied, “we decided then that we
would take UC Davis to Iran.”
Since the trip, the university has followed up. An Iranian cleric
will be visiting Davis this summer to participate in a course on
Islam. And this week, Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian civil rights leader
and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, is visiting Davis.
The growth in contacts between the United States and Iran has been
especially important to the American Institute of Iranian Studies,
a group that was founded in 1967 and that until 1979 maintained a
research center and hostel in Tehran for visiting American students
and scholars, helped those visitors in their dealings with the American
government, and offered a range of fellowships for those scholars.
After the Iranian revolution, the institute shifted its fellowships to
support work about Iran, but the work was all conducted in the United
States. In the past few years, the institute has started offering
fellowships once again for work in Iran. Currently the institute
is offering fellowships for Ph.D. students to do language study in
Iran in the summer, for senior professors to make brief trips to the
country to conduct research and for a junior professor to spend a
few months on a research project.
The institute has helped a few Iranian scholars visit the United
States, and is working to bring four prominent Iranian archaeologists
this summer to a major conference, the International Congress of
Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology, which is being held in July
at the University of Chicago.
Erica Ehrenberg, executive director of the institute, said that all of
these efforts remain fragile. “There is theory and there is practice,”
she said. “You can plan everything and then end up with visa problems.”
But she said that the trends are encouraging – and she is thrilled
that more colleges are getting involved in Iran. “One of the really
great things is that you have this increased interest and activity
among American colleges and there is also growing interest and
support in Iran,” Ehrenberg said. “Clearly the Iranians are keeping
the door open.”
Larger exchange organizations are also watching the openings with
interest. Mark G. Pomar, president of the International Research and
Exchanges Board, said that larger organizations like his have to put
Iran programming “on a board burner” until relations between the U.S.
and Iran stabilize. As a result, he said that the efforts of colleges
like Oberlin and Tufts are “fantastic” in that they build the knowledge
base in the United States for an era when larger efforts can start.
Pomar traveled to Iran on the trip organized by the Search for Common
Ground, to prepare for that day. “We’re going to be in the second
wave,” he said.
– Scott Jaschik