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The U.S. ambassador to India, in an interview with "The Chronicle" last week, criticized the opposition of some Indian government officials and politicians to legislation that would allow U.S. and other foreign universities to establish campuses or programs in the country. He spoke favorably, however, about India's willingness to take on half of the financial and administrative responsibility in running the Fulbright educational-exchange program. The new Fulbright agreement, recently signed by the two governments, doubles the total amount of scholarships awarded annually to Indians and Americans, to $5-million, said David C. Mulford, U.S. ambassador to India since 2004. The numbers of students awarded scholarships in India and the United States, about 100 in all, will double as well, effective immediately. For the first time, India will make a financial contribution to the scholarships, which have been renamed the Fulbright-Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarships and Grants. The new agreement also allows both countries to raise funds from private sources to expand the student-exchange program.

Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects has remained more or less constant. In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-performing-arts graduates in 1985. There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone to college. Most important, graduates in the arts, psychology, and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not the only goal of higher education, but it is one of the main reasons taxpayers subsidize higher education through direct government college support, as well as loans, scholarships, and grants. The potential wage gains for college graduates is reason enough for students to pursue a college education. The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That's a lot of wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get something for those two years, but it's less than half of the wage gains from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt is not an ideal way to begin a career. A big part of the problem is that the United States has paved a single road to knowledge, the road through the classroom. Lots of students, however, crash before they reach the end of the road. Who can blame them? Sit-down learning is not for everyone, perhaps not even for most people. There are many roads to an education. Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well educated. Apprentices in Europe are well educated but not college schooled. The author contends the need to open more roads to education so that more students can reach their desired destination.

This article highlights the findings from two studies about faculty productivity in the United States that were discussed at the American Educational Research Association's annual conference in San Diego this month. The first paper, titled "International Faculty: Experiences of Academic Life and Productivity in U.S. Universities," found that faculty members in the United States with foreign undergraduate degrees appear to be more productive as researchers than are those who earned degrees domestically. The paper says the reasons for this are unclear, especially given the relative dissatisfaction that such professors feel toward their jobs. The researchers offer several possible explanations: that only the best and brightest scholars of other countries secure tenure-track faculty positions at American colleges; that the foreign colleges where such faculty members received their undergraduate degrees were more selective or more focused in their offerings than the American colleges their colleagues attended; or that faculty members with foreign degrees simply work harder, perhaps because they are more focused or isolated or believe they need to work especially hard to gain tenure or earn U.S. citizenship. The second paper, titled "International and Citizen Women Faculty Productivity at Research Universities in the United States," was based on an analysis performed by Kate Mamiseishvili, an assistant professor of higher-education leadership at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She found that the foreign women she studied were substantially less productive than their American counterparts in terms of the time spent teaching and working with students. The foreign women were substantially more productive, however, when it came to research, as measured by their publication records and the numbers of presentations or exhibitions they had given over the previous two years. Although citizen and noncitizen women did not significantly differ in the time they had devoted to service activities, the international female academics were substantially more likely to perform such activities within their own institutions.

A Mexican saying holds that "Como Mexico no hay dos"--There is only one Mexico. American media these days interpret that notion with a vengeance. Story after story depicts a country overrun by out-of-control drug wars and murder, where corrupt police officers trip over beheaded victims more often than they nab perpetrators. South of the border, a beauty queen smuggles drugs. Kidnappers take a hostage negotiator hostage. People with money keep security SWAT teams close by. Killers invade hospitals to shoot enemies who escaped earlier hits. All that in a land that endlessly exports illiterate illegal immigrants, viewed by many in the United States as either continuing threats to the economy or ethnic jokes who stoke the rise of a book such as Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican!". In this article, the author describes Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL), the foremost book fair in the Spanish-speaking world, the pride of this venerable capital of Jalisco state, about four hours east of Puerto Vallarta. It drew an astonishing 600,000 visitors over nine days in late November and early December--up from 150,000 its first year--a good 60,000 of them children and most of them buying books. Founded two decades ago, FIL annually draws to Mexico's second-largest city--the metropolitan area here comprises 4.5 million people--approximately 600 publishers and 15,000 book professionals from 40 countries, among them more than 500 authors. The author contends that this international literary festival in Guadalajara should close the book on media stereotypes of America's much-maligned neighbor.

The publication of Francois Cusset's "French Theory" raises a series of fascinating questions concerning the trans-Atlantic transmission and circulation of ideas. Most important, it impels everyone to inquire why for a time French thought managed to flourish in American universities while French intellectuals rapidly abandoned the entire paradigm. During the 1980s, students and professors of literary theory fervently imbibed the classic texts of "French theory"--what came to be known on America as "poststructuralism." In this article, the author discusses the factors that accounts for French theory's warmer reception in America.

In this article, the author discusses how it is simply too late to be still speaking about French theory and its role in the intellectual life of the United States today. It seems to many observers that the gap between real-life politics and theory's guerrillas is much too wide already, after 30 years of academic fever, for the two worlds to even speak a common language. If theory is to be of any use nowadays, the many tricks and games implied by its cultural metamorphoses should be taken seriously: by addressing the American identity of French theory, and even by pondering the strange feedback effect of a recent return of French theory to France, where it is now coming back under cover, under the disguise of an American type of threat against France's age-old abstract universalism.

There is a sense of urgency in America today, reminiscent of the "space race" rhetoric of the cold-war era, that Americans must get their act together in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education because the Asians are coming. Many people believe that higher-education institutions in countries like China and India produce professionals in those so-called STEM fields far more effectively than U.S. institutions do, thus posing a major threat to the nation's global competitiveness. Amid the Spellings Commission's concern about America's global competitiveness, the author argues that it would be a mistake to infer that Asian institutions do a better job teaching in STEM fields. The extraordinary talent pool of Asian scientists is not the result of a superior educational system, but rather of the fact that a larger proportion of top students in Asia choose to enter STEM fields in college or graduate school and have the requisite preparation. Several cultural factors account for that phenomenon, none of which have to do with the way the United States or other countries run their institutions or teach their students. What is known about how the brain learns suggests that Asian colleges should become more like their American counterparts, not the other way around. This author contends that the American system of higher education, perhaps unwittingly, promotes more endured learning. It mixes things up, offers students more choices in any given semester, and allows more student engagement with a variety of course materials. An understanding of how the brain learns suggests that the more varied and innovative approaches of American higher education manifests itself in one's thinking in the future--which is the object of education.

While both the author and Norman Finkelstein were reviled by American Zionists for their opinions regarding Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories when they came up for tenure, the author ultimately gained tenure at an Israeli university, while Finkelstein was denied tenure at an American one. Drawing on this experience, the author argues that American universities are being reconstructed as corporations whose major objective is to sell products. Here, faculty have become products, whereas in Israel, faculty govern their own universities and enjoy correspondingly greater academic freedom.

Public health, once the gem of American social programs, has turned to dross. During the 20th century, the public-health sector wiped smallpox and polio off the U.S. map; virtually eliminated rickets, rubella, and goiter; stopped epidemic typhoid and yellow fever; and brought tuberculosis--once the leading cause of death in U.S. cities--under control. It sought, with considerable success, to reform social and economic structures so the poor would have the same chance at decent health as the wealthy. But public health seems to be a phenomenon of the past, like the Great Society or the New Deal. One testament to the failure is the activity of American health officials, the products of public-health training programs. In the past six years, Americans have seen officials redirect tax-levy funds to pay for ludicrous "biopreparedness" exercises in anticipation of wholly fabricated epidemic dangers, concocted by an administration unable to admit its mistakes after September 11. They have heard officials endorse useless "virginity pledges" for teenagers. They have seen them invoke federal quarantine law--claiming there was a hazard to the public--to arrest one man who had flown on an airplane while carrying noninfectious tuberculosis. But in the past six years, no health official has argued forcefully for social changes that would genuinely improve the public's health on a significant scale. They don't demand reforms of the sort that would make Americans more like those developed countries (Denmark, France, etc.) where infant-mortality rates are more than 20 percent lower than theirs and where life expectancy is longer--changes like more affordable housing, a guaranteed minimum income, a higher minimum wage, restoration of workplace-safety oversights emasculated by big-business-friendly government, or better and cheaper public transportation systems. The author states that health educators must revise their teaching radically and develop curricula that face the vexatious positioning of health as a moral issue.

The United States has begun a $75-million program to promote democracy by supporting Iranian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). That program, coupled with loose talk about regime change from members of Congress, commentators close to the administration, and individuals within the administration, has fed a sense of vulnerability and paranoia among elements of Iran's ruling regime. Those elements believe that the United States, entangled in Iraq and Afghanistan, is no longer capable of a military intervention in Iran. Rather, they believe, it is seeking to overthrow the regime through a "velvet revolution," similar to the peaceful revolutions that brought about regime change in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former republics of the Soviet Union. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry is dedicated to uncovering a comparable "plot" for "soft" revolution in Iran and producing evidence of it for both senior government officials and the larger public. In the ministry's version of reality, American and European think tanks, foundations, and universities, and their proxies in the region, play the principal role in promoting what is, at bottom, a policy of the U.S. government. Iranian scholars and NGO activists are lured abroad with fellowships, research grants, and university appointments, and then put in touch with American and European policy makers, members of intelligence agencies, and democracy activists. That line of thinking explains official Iranian suspicion of the grant-giving programs of American foundations, universities, and think tanks. From the perspective of Tehran, the transparency of those foreign organizations, along with the presence on their staffs of members of former--and future--U.S. administrations, merely reinforces the conviction that there is a hidden agenda: The institutions are closely linked to the U.S. government and carry out its policies. In this article, the authors discuss the limited ability of the United States to spur liberalization within Iran and argue that its efforts to do so only aid the calculating and paranoid forces of repression.

In this article, the author talks about the situation of Muslims in Western countries such as the United States. Here, the author talks about his experience wherein his visa was being revoked in late July 2004. The reason is that he made donations totaling approximately $900 to a Swiss Palestinian-support group that is now on the American blacklist and that the group had ties with Hamas. He points out that American society, like all Western societies has changed. The diversity of its population has produced a diversity of political views with which we must come to terms, particularly with regard to the Middle East and to relations with the countries that have an Islamic majority. Millions of Western citizens of the Muslim faith have brought a new outlook toward the world and toward Western policy. He revisits Islamic scriptural sources in order to share his views on how Muslims can live their lives in the West.

In this article, the author discusses Europe's anti-Americanism stance. He observes that Europe's aversion to America has become greater, louder, and more determined, and that it has unified Western Europeans more than any other political emotion (with the exception of a common hostility toward Israel). The author contends that the many disastrous and irresponsible policies by members of the Bush administration has contributed greatly to Europe's animosity towards America. Negative sentiments and views have been driven not only by what the United States does, but rather by an animus against what Europeans have believed that America is. While the politics, style, and discourse of the Bush presidential terms--and of President Bush as a person--have undoubtedly exacerbated anti-American sentiment among Europeans and fostered a heretofore unmatched degree of unity between elite and mass opinion in Europe, they are not anti-Americanism's cause. Indeed, according to this author, a change to a center-left administration in Washington, led by a Democratic president, would not bring about its abatement, let alone its disappearance. The author examines the reasons behind this animosity, and explains how anti-Americanism has helped Europe gain respect and political clout in the rest of the world.

The world is moving toward a uniform material culture, dominated by mostly material American influences: technological innovations, fashion, Hollywood and the celebrity culture it promotes, hip-hop, and rock and roll. But the pervasiveness of the trappings of American culture obscures the central cultural paradox that lies within the globalization process: Although people around the world may wear, eat, and listen to American products, they continue to maintain their deeply ingrained values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions. They may embrace the material products of modernity, but they cling tenaciously to their underlying cultural cores--which remain vibrant and resiliently distinct. As such, it is important for the Americans to acquire, develop, and master international cultural fluency if they want to sell their products to the world. This article discusses how the U.S. and its citizens can master international cultural fluency in order to prepare them for the challenges of globalization.

America's reputation abroad has never been so abysmal. That is the inescapable conclusion of countless books, newspaper and magazine articles, and public-opinion polls that have documented the growth of anti-Americanism during the Bush administration. Yet outside Europe and the Middle East, the loathing for Bush and the bitterness toward America do not appear nearly so intense. That is especially true in India. India is not only more sympathetic to American foreign policy, but it also lacks fixation on the injurious effects of America's economic and cultural influence. The tormented bond between America and Europe has been addressed recently in an article in the September issue of The Journal of American History by the Dutch historian Rob Kroes, titled "European Anti-Americanism: What's New?" On the surface, Kroes's essay is a litany of contemporary, but also ancient, European complaints about American behavior. No doubt the arguments between Americans and Europeans will endure, as Kroes's essay demonstrates. One hopes, though, that America's dreadful image in the world will be altered in the future not just by a change in presidents and policies, but also by the example of how a country like India can maintain a less neurotic relationship with the United States. Perhaps, then, India may provide a more desirable model than the European Union of how other nations can define their identities not in opposition to, but independent of, America.

This article reports on the imprisonment of a Muslim former student on charges related to terrorism that has struck a chord among academics and public intellectuals. Syed Fahad Hashmi, a 28-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, is being held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, on multiple charges related to terrorism. Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at the City University of New York's Brooklyn College, remembers Syed Fahad Hashmi as an energetic student who took frequent advantage of his professors' office hours. Ms. Theoharis also recalls that her student took a keen interest in civil liberties. Mr. Hashmi wrote his final paper for her class on the contradictions between basic American freedoms and ideals and the U.S. government's treatment of citizens since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Mr. Hashmi's involvement in Al Muhajiroun, a controversial and now officially defunct extremist Islamic group based in Britain, is one reason for his arrest. Testimony against Mr. Hashmi by a government informant may also play a role in his continued detention. Mr. Hashmi's ordeal has had a profound effect on Ms. Theoharis and another of his instructors, who have organized a "Free Fahad" campaign to gain his release. She and her colleague Corey Robin, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who began the campaign, have gained the support of hundreds of academics, writers, and social-justice activists. Apart from Mr. Hashmi's personal predicament, the case's potential to create a chilling effect on college campuses is troublesome to those in academe who want him freed.