Let me start out by stating for the record that the idea of limiting the majors of international students is simply absurd. It is an irrational response to the threat of terrorism. Additionally, it is extremely unwieldy and has wide-ranging ramifications that come with permanent, damaging consequences. I must confess that I was initially tempted to lash out against the notion that international students should be denied the right to pursue certain majors. (I am, after all, an international student myself.) However, a rational examination of the issue will suffice; the facts, indeed, speak for themselves.
First, take the problems of definition. How is one going to define an "international student" -- by background, birthplace, race or ethnicity? I know some international students here who talk and act like they've lived in America their whole life, yet a friend in my economics class talks with a heavy Indian accent. Does that make the former less "international" than the latter? This definition is crucial to any idea of implementing a rule. What about permanent residents of the United States who are citizens of another country -- would they be considered as falling under this catch-all definition? Globalization has lowered the geographical and institutional obstacles that used to define states, and the movement of peoples across physical space has increased greatly, posing numerous problems for such a notion.
Then, one has to consider the intellectual sphere as well. Would a ban be placed on courses that incorporate even a modicum of technical knowledge? This would necessarily mean that colleges like Dartmouth would have to review their educational policies, as distributives such as SCI and SLAs would have to be revamped in order to deny some students technical knowledge. The notion of an interdisciplinary course too would come under scrutiny, and would probably be scrapped as well, for how can a course be truly interdisciplinary if it is prevented from coming into contact with the physical sciences?
Problems of monitoring would also add to the confusion. Would one watch what professors say in class? Perhaps there should be a new law passed that would add on the student evaluation forms we obediently complete after every quarter a yes-no option of whether the professor has said anything about "scientific gobbledygook that could be used in any form of terrorism." Professors better watch their backs when the Class of 2007 comes to Dimensions next year -- perhaps the Bush administration will send FBI agents, posing as prospectives, to Hanover next year to sit in on lectures and monitor the faculty's behavior with hidden tape recorders. Perhaps to stop students from auditing classes, all international students might have to wear sophisticated Global Positioning System trackers -- perhaps it should be worn on our foreheads for aesthetic purposes. My only (humble, no doubt) hope is that it will be of a modern design; perhaps they could work with Nike or Adidas to make something worth wearing.
The implementation of this idea presents numerous gaping loopholes that cannot be ignored. The typical major at Dartmouth requires 10 courses; so if a ban was placed on majors, would it mean that interested students could take nine courses in order not to be considered a threat? Of course, formal rules pertaining to this have not yet been established, but my point is that drawing such an arbitrary line creates more problems and issues than it actually solves.
The ramifications of such actions would be widespread and largely negative. The bureaucratic costs associated with such a task would be huge -- either the creation of a new organization or the expansion of an existing one would definitely raise administrative costs, no doubt borne by the taxpayers. This would undoubtedly deal a blow to the intellectual climate of higher institutions in America -- it is through scientific debate and by the juxtaposition of different ideas that science as a body of knowledge can process. The idea of Hegel's dialectic (in which a synthesis results of a thesis and an antithesis) would be defeated by such a rule; often, different views result from an individual coming from different physical and ideological backgrounds. To put it simply, the vitality of discussions in classrooms would be affected, and this is necessarily bad for all of us as college students.
Most importantly (and most pertinent to us) is the fact that on-campus diversity would most likely drop. Most international students would go to the United Kingdom or other places to get an education; this detracts from the purpose of an education as a whole -- perhaps the most important lessons we learn can sometimes be gained from cross-cultural settings which are separate and distinct from the academic classroom.
Such a policy would simply be an unwise knee-jerk reaction to the threat of terrorism -- admittedly, there might be some bad sheep, but to implement a policy that blocks the education of a great number to root out a few people is simply absurd. I personally chose Dartmouth over academic institutions in the U.K. because of the breadth and scope that I felt the United States could offer me in both my academic and social experiences -- I really hope that subsequent events do not prove my judgment to be flawed.
