24 July 2008
Scholar Rescue Saves the Intellectual Capital of a Country
Interview with Scholar Rescue Fund’s Jim Miller -- Part 2
The Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF) is a program of the Institute of International Education (IIE), an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1919 that administers the Fulbright Student and Scholars Programs on behalf of the U.S. State Department as well as assisting a wide variety of international agencies and corporate and private foundations in their educational and exchange programs.
In this, the second part of a recent interview with America.gov, SRF Executive Director Jim Miller responds to questions. (See the first half of the interview.)
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Question: What would you most like an international audience to know about the SRF?
Miller: We are an international effort offering an international response to a global problem. And as our networks grow throughout the world, we are more poised than ever to promote a local response. A Ugandan political scientist could have pursued a visiting position in the U.S. or U.K., but in our efforts to keep the region’s vital intellectual capital as close to home as possible, we were able to bring him to a university in Tanzania, where he is contributing a far more relevant discourse.
Question: Can you provide the latest figures on who the SRF has helped and how?
Miller: As of July 2008, SRF has assisted scholars from 39 countries. Sixty-six participating universities abroad represent approximately 53 percent of our host partners. A recent increase in international participation is due in large part to SRF’s Iraq Scholar Rescue Project, which aims to secure academic positions for Iraqi scholars in the Middle East and North Africa. In recent months, private and public universities and research institutions in Jordan, UAE, Egypt, Oman, Bahrain, Algeria, Qatar and Morocco, for example, have invited scholars to join their academic communities.
Question: Would you be giving more fellowships to persecuted scholars if you had the money?
Miller: SRF issues between 25 and 40 grants per year to scholars facing the most urgent concerns around the world. Since its formal inception in 2002, SRF has issued 273 fellowships to 219 scholars from 39 different countries, and has worked with institutions in 29 different countries to host SRF grantees. It is straightforward: more funding, wider rescue. Iraq is an example from which we are learning a great deal. Due to a generous level of support from the U. S. government and from private foundations and individuals, we expect to assist over 200 Iraqi scholars in the next two years alone. Still, we are learning that even that is not enough. The need will always be there. With limited funding as an issue, the hardest part of our job is deciding which scholars are most in need.
Question: Do SRF participants make a commitment to return home when the situation allows?
Miller: Most every scholar on the fellowship has described his or her desire to return home, and some have done so knowing that the threats which forced them to flee have not yet dissipated. After two years in the U.S. teaching and writing, a professor of journalism returned to his university in [Latin America] fully aware that the death threats he received from drug cartels, paramilitary groups and even government officials were still very much a present reality. We regularly keep in touch with him to make sure he and his family is safe. Though he is frequently in the news for exposing the various sources of his country’s corruption, he feels strongly that his time in the U.S. and the attention his case received has provided a source of protection. Unfortunately, in most cases, long-standing conflicts and irrepressible dictators will not allow many to return home for years to come. In a good number of these cases, scholars still manage to engage their students and colleagues back home while others have become an important voice from outside, bringing necessary attention to issues others at home cannot begin to discuss.
Question: When there are so many humanitarian crises that continue to arise in the world, what separates the IIE’s rescue of scholars from everything else?
Miller: In our work, the impact of saving one life has consequences for many.
An SRF scholar from Zimbabwe recently put it this way at an SRF symposium for rescued scholars: “The average age of the eight scholars here is 40 years, suggesting that they have up to 20 more years of teaching and research ahead of them. On average, each of the eight will probably teach 100 students in their home countries. This means that collectively, the scholars will teach 800 students per year. If you multiply the 800 students by the 20 years of shelf life left for us, you will come up with a total of 16,000 students who will benefit in the future from the preservation of the eight scholars here today.”
The work of rescuing the intellectual capital of a country, and when possible, ensuring its safe return home, is at the foundation of rebuilding education and civil societies.
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