ORGANIZATIONS are often prone? to vociferous debates and scrutiny about how they promote change at this University.Should the Living Wage campaign have organized a sit-in that eventually caused its downfall? Should the Curriculum Internationalization initiative have castigated the administration instead of 'engaging' it (whatever that means)?
But perhaps the means of promoting change do not really matter at all at this University. After all, a direct action protest on the South Lawn two Fridays ago produced about 30 onlookers, two fewer than the more vibrant observers who gathered to watch a hawk maul a squirrel to death at the Amphitheatre. How's that for your dose of campus activism?
Maybe this sickening, deep-seated apathy explains why the student body proposes merely to talk to the administration as international students at the University don't receive need-based aid. Even if they qualified for or needed it, Yvonne Hubbard, director of Student Financial Services, told me that the mandate of her office does not extend beyond U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
I was shocked beyond words. International students make up five percent of the student population and often have the same financial struggles as any U.S. permanent residents or citizens, so there is no reason why they should be denied aid by the University. Second, and more fundamentally, the administration has not lived up to its supposed obligations to help all students financially. For instance, in terms of need based aid, AccessUVa, which is part of Student Financial Services, pledges on its Web site to make, "higher education more affordable for anyone going to UVa." Unless something escapes my comprehension, this should include international students who attend the University. Is it too much to ask for a University to live up to what its mission statement says?
It's not that international students don't need aid. According to Batkhuu Dashnyam, head of the Student Council Committee for International Student Financial Aid (ISFA), a survey administered to incoming first-year students in 2007 by the Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies noted that 50.8 percent of incoming first year international students could not break the $75,000 income cap, compared to 20.4 percent of incoming U.S. citizens. Factor in the international students' annual tuition expense of $40,000 as projected by the International Studies Office, and this is more than an arithmetic cause for concern.
In a bid to raise awareness regarding the issue, ISFA has continued to engage key administration members, including Provost Arthur Garson and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Milton Adams, over the last few months. ISFA has pursued what Dashnyam calls a "middle ground policy" focused on open dialogue and understanding the administration's constraints.
From this campaign of dialogue and openness, ISFA learned three things: The administration would wait to enact change until a new vice provost for international affairs is hired in September; the University had limited resources due to cutbacks in state funding; and since there was no philanthropist who could donate to international student financial aid, students needed to help the administration identify potential donors for the cause. But all these three fables are old records that the administration continues to play in order to prevent enacting change.
"Well, wait a minute," the naïve student may inquire, "doesn't the administration have its hands tied?" Proponents of this "hands tied" myth buy into the administration's rhetoric without bothering to understand the difference between inability and neglect. Despite its allegedly shrinking resources, the administration could have easily announced symbolic gestures that would have made it a moderate partner for dialogue, such as releasing an official statement to include international student financial aid as an issue in the Commission for the Future of the University. Yet, this was not done.
But perhaps genuine gestures of goodwill are too much to expect from this administration. Maybe all we can expect is for it to just fulfill its job requirements. However, the administration flunks even this low-standard assessment. For example, why did the University ask students to go around begging for their cause, when raising money for causes is the specific duty of Robert Sweeney, senior vice president for development and public affairs, and the Office of Development? When the administration cannot even fulfill its own obligations, it becomes nothing but an obstacle to change.
But is it really the administration's fault that money is not being earmarked for international student financial aid? The answer is a resounding "yes." Money is not just earmarked for causes by random, ignorant people who fling money as they are about to kick the bucket. Fund-raising is a process that involves educating individuals about the needs of the University and engaging potential alumni and contributors. This is one of the key responsibilities of the administration. If students need money for financial aid, the University should commit formally to making this need heard as it is campaigning for millions of dollars and increase its engagement with alumni in general and international student alumni in particular.
Engaging in a dialogue with someone presupposes the fact that they have something substantive to say. Rather than buy into the rhetoric of vastly exaggerated "administrative constraints," ISFA must ratchet up the pressure on the administration through direct action and demanding concrete acts such as those outlined above. Otherwise, the administration will continue to think that it can simply ignore the question of international student financial aid into extinction.
Prashanth Parameswaran's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at pparameswaran@cavalierdaily.com.?