U.S. Keeps Foreign Ph.D.s

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By DAVID WESSEL

Most foreigners who came to the U.S. to earn doctorate degrees in science and engineering stayed on after graduation—at least until the recession began—refuting predictions that post-9/11 restrictions on immigrants or expanding opportunities in China and India would send more of them home.

Newly released data revealed that 62% of foreigners holding temporary visas who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available. Of those who graduated in 1997, 60% were still in the U.S. in 2007, according to the data compiled by the U.S. Energy Department's Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the National Science Foundation.

Foreigners account for about 40% of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders working in the U.S., and a larger fraction in engineering, math and computer fields. "Our ability to continue to attract and keep foreign scientists and engineers is critical to…increase investment in science and technology," Oak Ridge analyst Michael Finn said.

"Data for all available cohorts indicate that 'stay rates' of foreign science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2007 are slightly higher than they have been in recent years," Mr. Finn said. His findings, which use tax data to track graduates, cover the years before the U.S. plunged into a recession that damped job prospects in many U.S. industries and universities.

Other analysts see signs that recent foreign grads are increasingly likely to return home, particularly in today's weak job market. "I have no doubt that the 2009 data will show a dramatic shift," said Vivek Wadwha, executive in residence at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering, who has been warning loudly about the threat that trend would pose to innovation in the U.S. In October 2008, Mr. Wadwha and others used Facebook to question 1,224 foreigners studying at U.S. institutions at all levels. More than half the Indians and 40% of the Chinese said they hoped to return home within five years.

Separate NSF surveys show the fraction of foreign Ph.D.s planning to stay in the U.S. dipped in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack and then rebounded. Nearly 80% of those with temporary visas surveyed in 2007 said they planned to stay; more than half had definite plans to do so.

Joy Ying Zhang, the son of a primary-school teacher and a college professor, left China in 1999 for Detroit's Wayne State University, where he arrived with two suitcases and $2,000 in cash. He later transferred to Carnegie Mellon University, which awarded him a Ph.D. in computer science in 2008.

Four or five of his friends have returned to China, he said, and he has discussed doing so. But Mr. Zhang, now a research assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus, has decided stay. "I have spent 10 years here already," he said. "It took me some time to get used to American life. Now, it'd be hard to get used to China. It's called 'reverse culture shock.' "

In recruiting for Carnegie Mellon, he finds young Chinese less eager to come to the U.S. than those of his generation. "Life in China is getting better. There are research alternatives in China—like Microsoft China," he said. "They can get good mentoring and advice there, instead of coming to the U.S."

In 2007, foreign citizens accounted for 16,022 of the Ph.D.s awarded in science and engineering in the U.S., or 46% of the total, according to the Oak Ridge data. In contrast, the class of 1997 had 12,966 foreigners, or 30% of the total.

Graduates of Ph.D. programs in the physical sciences and computer science are more likely to remain in the U.S. than those in other fields, Mr. Finn said. Those programs are popular with Chinese and Indian students, who are more likely to remain in the U.S. than those from Taiwan, South Korea and Western Europe. Among 2002 graduates, 92% of the Chinese and 81% of the Indians were in the U.S. after five years; in contrast, 41% of South Koreans and 52% of Germans were.

Aranyak Mehta, 31, came from India nearly a decade ago to study algorithms at Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a Ph.D. in 2005. Today, he is a research scientist at Google—and planning, for now, to remain in the U.S. "There's always a trade-off—family, culture, and all that," he said. "One of the most important things with an academic background is the work that you do, and is it exciting?"

Using the LinkedIn online network, Mr. Wadhwa identified 1,203 skilled Indians and Chinese who had returned home. Three-quarters said visa issues weren't a factor. Rather, career opportunities, quality-of-life concerns and family ties were major factors. Some 70% of the Chinese and 61% of the Indians said opportunities for professional advancement were better at home.

The NSF recently said the number of foreign science and engineering students enrolled in graduate programs of all types hit 158,430 in April 2009, up 8% from the year before.

The Student Sex Column Movement - Nation

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The 1996 launch of "Sex on Tuesday" at the University of California, Berkeley--birthplace of the 1960s national student activist movement--triggered the campus newspaper sex column phenomenon.

Within a few years, the sex column had spread to campuses across the country, becoming the "most publicized, electrifying, and divisive phenomena in student journalism," in the words of Dan Reimold, leading expert on the student newspaper sex column.

Reimold estimates that "during any given semester more than 200 sex and dating columns are being published in U.S. student newspapers, magazines, and online outlets.... What's most important here is perspective. In the mid-nineties, the number of student sex columns: zero." In addition to increasing student readership, the proliferation of student sex columns has drawn national attention, like a 2002 New York Times profile of student journalism's most famous sex columnist, Yale's Natalie Krinsky, whose most popular "Sex and the (Elm) City" articles drew hundreds of thousands of hits.

"We're not Generation X--we're Generation Sex," one student columnist quipped to Reimold during the course of research for his upcoming book, Sex and the University: Celebrity, Controversy and a Student Journalism Revolution.

The attraction of a sex column is simple: most college students-- honestly, most people past puberty, period--are either a) having sex; b) talking about having sex; or c) all of the above. Entertainment is usually a key reason behind the publication of sex columns, but the writing is not all about fun. These controversial pieces have proved battlegrounds for the rights of the student press and "appropriate" subjects for publication (ironically, only increasing their popularity and fueling the movement).

Frank LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center points out that "sex is one of those red-flag subjects," especially on conservative or religious campuses, whether in the form of sex columns, explicit pictures or other writing about sex. At private institutions where students lack First Amendment protections, this can lead to direct censorship--hundreds of copies of a Wagner College newspaper running a sex column in 2003 were yanked from the stands, as was a 2004 publication at La Roche College, a Catholic institution, that advocated teaching safe-sex practices.

Other times, the controversy at a private or public institution is confined to angry letters to the editor or university administration, such as a letter from a parent (self-described as "no shrinking violet and certainly not a prude") expressing his shock at "the whole total lack of any self respect, self worth or religious morality" he felt was exhibited by a University of West Florida sex columnist, whom he also believed to be "emotionally disturbed and quite possibly mentally challenged."

Despite the constitutional right to freedom of the press, occasionally state universities and even state legislators have attempted to put a stop to sexual content they've found inappropriate. Reacting to cover art depicting a woman's breast and a column on oral sex in publications on two state-funded campuses, in 2005, Republican Arizona state legislator Russell Pearce, added a provision to the state budget that would deny funding to student newspapers. Mark Goodman of the SPLC told a local paper that, in twenty years of work on student press issues, this case about sex in the student press was the first time he had ever seen a state legislature attempt to bar student newspaper funding.

In the most recent incident, this spring University of Montana law professor Kristen Juras attempted to get the Montana Kaimin"Bess Sex" column censored, even contacting state legislators in her efforts to get the paper's funding pulled.

Reimold told me that for 90 percent of sex columnists, the only "political" point they are trying to make is that sex is OK and something we should talk about. Bess Davis of "Bess Sex" agrees that "sex really has nothing to do with politics...that's just an impression built up by the media," and views her column as serving a purpose in opening up discussion in an underreported subject. Yet her column attracted the ire of Juras, who "has a history of advocacy for extremist Christian and right-wing causes," writes Bill Oram, former editor in chief of the Kaimin, such as her position as adviser for the student Christian Legal Society, which sued in 2007 when the Student Bar Association denied it funding due to the group's exclusion of gay students from leadership positions and voting. And in Arizona, it was Pearce (described as "ultraconservative" by a Democratic representative) and his Republican colleagues attempting to censor student papers, with vocal dissent from Democrats.

Politics are part of the equation, yet it's not an issue of a simple left-right political divide--liberal media beyond the campus level have done comparatively little quality sex journalism, while even the comprehensive sex education courses the right wing loves to hate are rarely particularly progressive, sex-positive or comprehensive. Reimold conceptualizes the resistance to student sex columns as an authoritarian and protective parental mindset that reacts against "the student generation taking back control of the sexual messages targeted at them." This rings partially true; after all, the Berkeley Free Speech Movement of the '60s was also about student activism versus the control of the administration and older generation. But--again, as in the '60s--antagonism stems from fellow students as well.

At its core, the sex column phenomenon is a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo, which is a source of concern for many administrators, parents and even students. Challenges to the columns stem from a conservative mindset--whether that be political, religious or cultural. Given that the Republican Party has become increasingly dominated by the religious right and the issues of the conservative culture wars, with sex smack at the forefront, these columns become politicized in a way the columnists themselves don't necessarily intend. With abortion, abstinence programs and same-sex marriage making up three of the right's key issues, the statement that "sex is OK" becomes even more politically charged when the sex in question is generally unmarried and occasionally queer.

Though Dartmouth College is a private college, its liberal speech policies and commitment to free expression have allowed sex columns to flourish uncensored in both the mainstream daily and progressive alternative newspaper, presenting an opportunity to look at columns published on the same campus in one politically neutral and one explicitly liberal venue. Furthermore, Dartmouth (known as the "conservative Ivy" and also known for the far-right newspaper the Dartmouth Review) demonstrates the storm fellow students can cause.

The sex column entered the pages of the Dartmouth Free Press in 2004, when senior Sheila Hicks, sexual leftist and host of the campus radio sex talk-show, "In Your Pants," encouraged readers to send "the questions you probably wouldn't ask your parents or your clergy members" to Dartmouth's liberal, progressive and alternative biweekly. Clint Hendler, Free Press editor in chief during the latter half of Hicks's tenure, saw the column as "a way to put a thumb in the eye of campus elements who found a ready outlet in the Dartmouth Review for rather churlish and reactionary takes on steps taken by the administration and others to support safe sex and LGBTQ culture." Unsurprisingly, given the aesthetic of the paper, sex columnists for the Free Press tend to be more clear about having explicit political and activist motivations than those on campuses in general.

Heather Strack asserts in the Free Press, "A sex column is a significant statement of female rights. Not only am I a female columnist, but I am writing about a topic considered taboo and improper for a woman." Women are the main target of abstinence/purity movements; thus, even if most columnists do not state this as unambiguously as Strack, the campus sex column is not only about students seizing control but about hearing underrepresented voices. Though men are readers in equal numbers, the sex columnist is a (straight and queer) female-dominated profession, with a small minority of queer men.

Sex columns vary widely and don't always include feminist motivations; some focus on love and relationships, while others have more casual concerns. They can promote exploration of gender and sexuality, or reinforce a heteronormative mentality. However, by and large, student sex columnists have higher standards for inclusive, woman-positive sex journalism--and better access to a venue willing to publish this material--than their off-campus counterparts. Isabel Murray, feminist columnist for the Free Press, takes Cosmopolitan to task for its heteronormative, male-pleasure-oriented approach, while pointing out that it and similar women's magazines are nonetheless the only noncampus media addressing female sexuality (explaining why until recently it was the most read magazine among college women).

People are downright uncomfortable with the concept of female sexuality: even at Dartmouth's SexFest, where Murray managed a table, she was struck by how "hesitant and disturbed" people seemed by her dental dams and a two-dimensional model of a vagina--far more so than by the condoms and three-dimensional plastic penis. The most controversial Dartmouth sex column took heat for dealing too explicitly with female sexuality.

The Dartmouth, the campus daily, jumped onboard in 2007 with a sex column in its student life pullout, the Mirror. Reaching a wider, more varied audience, the launch of Abi Medvin's "The Friday Quickie," followed by an installment of Zachary Gottlieb's regular column in the Dartmouth on "Sex-ploring the Sex Fest," quickly sparked a guest student column condemning the "unwholesome discussion of sex" as attacking his and other students' values. The author further denounced progressivism's practice of bringing "into the limelight everything once deemed taboo." (Ironically, unlike the Free Press columnists, neither Medvin nor Gottlieb identify as progressive.)

Despite this early hostility, Mirror sex columns mostly avoided attacks by steering clear of touchy subjects--little queer content and certainly none of the discussion of fetishes found in the pages of the Free Press. In retrospect, "Sandra Himen," the last Mirror sex columnist, regrets steering away from serious issues due to concerns that she might "ruffle feathers." But Himen can be forgiven since she followed on the heels of a columnist who showed how severely Dartmouth feathers can be ruffled when you don't shy away from the graphic--Aurora Wells quite literally drew a diagram of a vagina for her fall 2007 how-to column on oral sex, "Aurora's Guide to Eating Out." One letter to the editor from an alum expressed "extreme digust [sic], displeasure and disappointment at your choice to print the obscene and borderline-pornographic article."

The opposition to Wells's column is oddly reminiscent of a similar flurry over decency that occurred at Dartmouth... fifteen years prior. In 1994 Spare Rib, a now-defunct feminist magazine, published a special "Sex Issue" that included--oh déjà vu--diagrams of female genitalia. Matthew Berry of the also-defunct student Conservative Union at Dartmouth, which attempted to get Rib's advertisers to withdraw their support, called the issue "soft-core porn" and posited that "Spare Rib's staffers "will eventually mature and look back with embarrassment." Sorry to disappoint: former editor in chief Claire Unis (now Benjamine) has no regrets, and she still considers as ludicrous the outcry over diagrams you could find in Grey's Anatomy (the medical book, not the TV show). More disappointing is the fact that the same debate is being replayed after the turn of the millennium.

Besides finding Wells's column unappetizing, Zachary Gottlieb and Lee Cooper, another student columnist, complained about the double standard that they allege would never allow a man to publish instructions on giving blowjobs--even if the Mirror published it, Cooper claims, the author would be accused of misogyny and sexual harassment. As mentioned, college sex writing is female-dominated, and Reimold and the female columnists interviewed agreed that one reason for the dearth of male sex writers might be that women are permitted to get away with more.

On the other hand, Cooper and Gottlieb did little to dispel prejudices about male writers' misogyny, if one exists. Gottlieb titled his idea for a potential article (perhaps in a poor attempt at humor), "How to Blow Me Like a Well-Trained High-Class Prostitute, Young '11 Girls," leading to a letter to the editor from a Dartmouth medical student disturbed by "two male opinions screaming bloody horror with undercurrents of misogyny." Moreover, Gottlieb's and Cooper's assertions are not substantiated by any Mirror policy decision or campus experiment; they simply assume this hypothetical column (which no male was seriously attempting to write) would have encountered such a reaction.

Furthermore, the rhetoric about double standards ignores the importance of sex writing for women to assert themselves against mainstream patriarchal sexual messaging. This commentary and the reaction to Wells's article (which included comments on the popular IvyGate blog that used "lesbian" as an insult) demonstrate precisely why an article discussing female and queer sexuality serves a greater need than one on girls' giving blowjobs. People complained about being flat-out grossed-out by what in reality is a fairly vanilla sexual practice.

Censorship attempts notwithstanding, student sex journalists have a better platform from which to write what they choose for a general audience than traditional, restricted "real world" media. They can decide to thoughtfully address taboo topics like BDSM, fetishism and orgies, as Virginia Dalloway did in her Free Press column, without a conventional bias that automatically demonizes them as outside "normal" sexuality. (Dalloway points out that 11 percent of men and 17 percent of women have tried bondage.) Shinen Wong, a Free Press queer sex and sexuality columnist, says he received the most positive feedback from straight men for his articles rejecting the macho masculinity of the "tyranny of the dominant cultural script" as "bullshit." These Free Press columns demonstrate the potential power of a sex column for furthering a progressive agenda. While sex columns can be whitewashed and heteronormative, they can also live up to their subversive potential in having significant political and social ramifications.

In addition, Reimold found that sex columns influence the rest of the newspaper by "getting sex out of the closet." National and campus sex and sexuality issues, such as LGBT rights, gender identity, abortion, birth control, STIs and sexual assault, gain recognition as significant, acceptable topics. After the sex column's introduction, the frequency of these types of articles increased in the Free Press and the Dartmouth; examples include Mary Novak's "The Battle Over Birth Control: Screwing Over Students"; Andrew Lohse's "Sexism, Heteronormativity, and the Review," where the former Review-er criticizes the right-wing campus paper's anti-sex "Sex Issue"; and "The Sexually Passive Dartmouth Girl": "Sometimes you just wanna be pounded. That's what it comes down to."

The right-wing culture war, with its interest in controlling sex and sexuality, continues undiminished since Obama's election, meaning that columns informed by a feminist or queer ethic still have plenty to push back against. Reimold predicts that in the next years we will see increasingly risque pieces becoming the norm. Already the popularity of the sex column has spurred the development of entire college sex magazines that provide a more in-depth, varied level of sexual expression, expanding into poetry, art and extended nonfiction.

This summer Dartmouth saw the launch of a journal of gender and sexuality, Sir & Madam (ahem... S&M), with articles and creative writing covering YouPorn, being a drag queen, a preteen girl's awakening of sexual desire, and the rainbow of gender and sexuality. Regardless of accusations of unwholesomeness, sex doesn't seem headed back into the campus closet anytime soon.

About Alex DiBranco

Alex DiBranco is a former Nation intern, freelance writer, and poet based in New York City. Her major interests include sex-positivism, queer issues, feminism, atheism, and studying the Religious Right

Are Students Really Studying More than Social Networking?

August 11th, 2009 | by Jennifer Van Grove

Wait a minute, this can’t be true. In a StudyBlue survey conducted by SurveyU, students went on the record to say that they are much likelier to spend more than three hours studying online each day than participating in any other online activity, such as using Facebook () or other social networking sites.

StudyBlue, an online academic network that aims to help students study smarter, used SurveyU’s high school and college student panel to survey about 1,500 students, ages 13 – 24, about their online study habits. While we expect students to actively use the web to enrich their study experience, we’re a little surprised that studying won out over social networking. After all, we use Facebook and Twitter () all day long.

The study found that 60% of students plan to study online three hours longer than doing anything else online, while only 26% of respondents predicted that they will spend more time online social networking than studying. Thankfully, 84% of surveyed students think the web has helped them perform more effectively and efficiently in school, and 54% have plans to increase their online studying habits this year over previous years.

A few other interesting stats from the survey:

College students are about twice as a likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on going to social network sites (26%), communicating (email, IM, Chatting, etc…) (28%), or watching TV, Videos and online movies (22%)

College students are more than 6 times as likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on spending playing online games (9%)

College students are three times as likely to plan on spending 3 hours or more a day studying and doing homework online than they plan on reading blogs/news and other content (18%)

On a semi-serious note, however, social media is proving to be an educational resource and utility, so even if students aren’t explicitly social networking as much as studying, they are likely using tools with lots of social baked in (and 3 out of 4 say they “would like a way to connect and share information online with others in their class.”)

In fact, even StudyBlue is touting an online service with collaboration tools and an iPhone app. Clearly, the boundary between online studying and social networking is blurred at best. But, regardless, we’re a little encouraged to know America’s youth is busy using the web for more constructive purposes than updating their status on Facebook.

Indonesian Government to Ease Visa Limits for East Timor Students, Give Civil Servants Pensions

Jakarta Globe

July 15, 2009

Government to Ease Visa Limits for East Timor Students, Give Civil Servants Pensions

by Putri Prameshwari

Indonesia plans to ease immigration rules for East Timorese students who want to remain in the country, a Justice and Human Rights Ministry official said on Tuesday.

As recommended by the now-disbanded Commission for Truth and Friendship, Indonesia would ease regulations for East Timorese students wanting to obtain visas, said Hafid Abbas, head of the research and development division at the ministry.

They have been dealing with a complicated bureaucracy," he said. "We want to simplify the process of getting a permit to stay, especially for refugees who still find it difficult to even get an identity card."

Hafid said there were more than 5,000 East Timorese students in Indonesia, with most studying at universities in Yogyakarta.

He said that under the proposed agreement East Timorese students would only be required to provide any document that proves they are a student. Thereafter, the local immigration office would coordinate with the Ministry of National Education to process the students' visas.

The new visas would also be extended from one year to two.

The new regulations are part of an agreement between Jakarta and Dili, the East Timor capital, that resulted from the Commission for Truth and Friendship's recommendations.

The agreement is expected to be endorsed during a meeting of representatives of the two governments in Dili on Sunday.

Hafid said the Indonesian government is also considering a visa-on-arrival policy for East Timorese. However, he said there were several points to discuss beforehand, including security issues, reciprocity and the benefits for both countries.

So far, we are thinking of giving visas on arrival only at several approved entry points," he said, adding that those entry points would be discussed at the meeting in Dili.

In addition to immigration matters, Indonesia is also prepared to pay pensions to more than 15,000 former civil servants, including military and police officers, who chose to become citizens of East Timor after independence.

Riskintono Rachman, operational director at state-owned PT Taspen, said the company would pay the pensions gradually, and would spend up to Rp 40 billion ($3.91 million) doing so.

On July 19, we will pay Rp 11.1 billion to 7,511 former civil servants," he said.

The Commission for Truth and Friendship was formed in 2004 to determine the facts of the violence and other events that occurred during and after East Timor's 1999 referendum on independence. The agreement to be endorsed was largely taken from its recommendations