User:Happyweekdays/Chinese faculty in U.S

Chinese faculty in the United States refers to people who teach or conduct research in U.S universities. Chinese faculty can be either visiting scholars with J-1 Visa and Chinese professors with permanent citizenship. In some cases, Chinese faculty involves Chinese graduate student who works as TA/RA in U.S universities. With the rapid development of globalization, more available capital can flow to the academy and make “knowledge society” possible. Consequently academic communication and cooperation become free and frequent around the world. Under such circumstance, internationalization comes into being and prevails across the world. Here Internationalization refers to globalization specifically on education. In response to this global trend, higher education in the United States choose to seek more international students and international faculty to enhance its global competence. The motivation drives the existence of academic internationalization can be 1) obtain the financial support, especially for universities burdened with debt. 2) enable college students to own broader worldview 3) respond to the tradition of international education exchange 4) meet the increasing academic demand from developing countries. 5) improve the research capability and ensure innovation. 6) keep diversity.  Furthermore, a survey for employers illustrates that job market calls for extra ability from students. Specifically, criteria includes “international studies knowledge, foreign language and learning abroad experience” other than just mastering the disciplinary expertise. United States is one the most popular destination for most of the students and scientists. 98,239 international scholars come to teach, carry out researches in colleges or universities from 2006 to 2007. (Open Doors 2007: International Scholars 2007a) Among enrolled international students who were in PHD program, a great amount of them remained and applied to be a faculty after graduation. (Altbach 2005,2006)  The research shows science and engineering are two most preferred fields for students who want to achieve faculty membership in U.S higher education.( Gappa et al.2007). As one of the main bodies in U.S colleges and Universities, just like other minority faculty on U.S campuses, Chinese faculty mainly engages in “teaching” ”research” and “service”. The study from Ketevan and Vicki demonstrates that international faculty has less chance to get involved in institutional governance and administration, compared to their U.S counterparts. (Marvasti 2005; Skachova 2007). The study also suggests that female international faculty bears more work on teaching than male faculty (Allen 1997, Bellas and Toutkoushian 1999).

History of Chinese scholars

Although earliest record of sending scholar to the United States can date back to Qing dynasty, most researches assume that a large-scale of Chinese scholars coming to United States contributes to the Chinese economic reform in late 1978. The reform broke the long-lasting confrontation between China and U.S in 1979. With the improvement of relationship of two countries, more Chinese scholars and students were sent from China to the United States through various programs such as The U.S-China Education Clearinghouse, which is co-founded by both Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China (CSCPRC) and National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA). The survey from NAFSA reveals that the financial support for Chinese scholars mainly comes from Chinese government, partly from the private sector during 1979-1981. Data collected shows that scholars financially supported by Chinese governments tended to be more concentrated on certain few institutions. To promote “Advanced training” which suffered from the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Chinese government gave privilege to those scholars who had already worked. They were expected to retake what they had been taught by the Soviet Union or Easter Europe before and help to boost teaching and research in fields, for example, engineering and science. However, since then, the number of Chinese scholar come to the United States decreased gradually. Two main factors are identified in the research. One is increasing demand for English language skill kept an amount of Chinese scholars out of the gate. Another factor lies in host institutions that may experience different expectation and demands with respect to faculty members. The data displays that the number of Chinese scholars accepted by U.S institutions decreased from 1,945 in 1978-1981 to 592 in 1981-1982.

Challenges as a Foreign Faculty

New social and institutional settings around the world require U.S colleges and universities become more open to diversity. From the perspective the United States, those talented and “ the world’s best and brightest” faculty,( NAFAS: The Association of International Educators,2006) will make great contribution to higher education in the United States. However, like other international faculty, Chinese faculty is faced with a series challenge both from work and life.

Obtaining Green Card

“Green Card” is legal document issued to people who want to work in the United States. People with Green Card are identified as permanent resident in the United States. For international scholars who want to be a faculty in U.S colleges or universities, Green card is necessary and essential. While the desire to obtain the Green Card inhibit most of international faculty from pursuing a better career. Once they decide to work for other institutions, they have to reapply for Green Card from the very beginning, even though they have waited for a long time. What is needed to note is that the application time is limited. Time flashes since the first day they came to the United States. Thus the preference to stay in their current positions takes over having a risk. Nonetheless, there still exits uncertainty. International faculty reported a concern on whether they could pass to obtain the Green Card. And this issue will determine if they can continue to work in the United States

Time Management

Solem &Foote (2004) point out that most of new faculty will get into trouble of efficient time management. How to balance teaching, research, and administrative service gets in their way. Except writing reports for the research and prepare for tenure like other U.S fellows, international faculty has to collect and submit needed documents and forms in a limited time. In other words, they suffer dual stress. From one aspect, the complicated process of application for Green Card bothers them. From another aspect, they worry about whether they are on right track towards bright career future.

Alienation and discrimination

Research on foreign-born faculty and the survey taken by Jennifer M. Collins indicate that “different language and cultural values…isolation, alienation, and discrimination have all been identified as constructing an environment of higher levels of stress” (2005.p,369) Cultural difference brings different communication style, social practices, religious and social beliefs. Some students take foreign-born faculty as an active role. They report to benefit from more exposure to other different perspective and help to overcome the stereotype of people and places. Yet when two different culture encounter in class, misunderstanding can occur between the faculty and students. The data shows that language barrier is perceived as the biggest contributor to teaching ineffectiveness. Susan Fiske deems that the perception of certain group of people through language or accent is fixed, stereotypes can produce potential discrimination and prejudice thus leading to partial evaluation for those international faculty’s work.(1998)

Glass-ceiling in workplace

The research learning about minority faculty in the United States manifests that international faculty is excluded out the circle dominated by the white elite with respect to academic promotion. Linda and Kathleen in The Common Experience of “Otherness: Ethnic and Racial Minority Faculty mentions that the international faculty are assigned more teaching and service, which hare less likely to be viewed as valuable contribution than research. Besides, unfamiliar with the politics inside the U.S universities, minority faculty may, as a result, be neglected on purpose and reluctant to be given away the opportunities for promotion. The research suggests that "bicultural"identity exits among foreign-born faculty. It's a way to maintain their culture, but also fit into the White higher education system. While they sacrifice their culture beliefs to some extend. Even though, they are disappointed by their colleagues attitudes.

Lack of support

The interview conducted to the international faculty shows that they find difficulty in managing family and work properly. They reported that compromising to either side is likely to cause the negative influence. The loss of “extended family” in their home country in terms of raising their children after coming to the United States make the situation worse. Also, they indicate that they receive little help from their host universities.