Virginia Theological Seminary : 1999 Seminar
Hospitality to the Stranger:
Education and Formation of International Students at VTS
This narrative is focused on the situation of international students—degree and diploma candidates coming from countries outside of North America—at Virginia Theological Seminary. The issues turn around cross-cultural education and formation for ministry. How do the international and domestic sides of our community equip each other for the work of ministry, and how is that frustrated? How are we called by God to change, as we seek to educate international students in ways that will serve the Church's mission? (For an introduction to the significance of international students at VTS, please see Appendices A and B.)
Deaconess (DSS) Tabitha Mlango is an apparent "success story" as an international student at Virginia Theological Seminary: someone who came, did good work, and went home to a ministry enhanced by an advanced theological degree. Tabitha had previously served as a deaconess responsible for teaching Old Testament at a theological college in Kenya. She applied for admission to VTS in 1995. A considerable number of candidates apply, and the Seminary chooses carefully among them. The requirements and standards for admission are somewhat different than for domestic students, an apparent inequality that some faculty members and students find unfair (see Appendix C). Tabitha was admitted to the program for the Diploma in Theology, a one-year program, with the provision that she could apply for admission to the M.T.S. Program after a semester's work (see Appendix D). With admission came a full scholarship, entirely from VTS resources: tuition, room, board, living allowance, health insurance. Not counting the heavy subsidy implicit in VTS's intentionally low tuition and room and board fees for all students, the cash value of the scholarship still exceeds $18,OOO/year. This greatly exceeds the maximum financial grant available to any domestic student.
DSS Tabitha Mlango arrived at VTS from Kenya in August of 1995 for a special orientation for international students. Several faculty members, administrators, and staff members have special responsibilities for international students and are involved at various stages of their time here, with particular intensity during orientation. The initial culture shock, linguistic difficulty, loss of family and home, and religious disorientation can be severe, and a great deal is done to try to help explain and build bridges (see Appendices F and G). Tabitha was reticent with Americans, although she appeared to "catch on" to the difficult American accent more quickly than many. She very rapidly came under the influence of a senior East African female student, Mary Mbiti. That provided her with an intense if narrow female community that appeared to follow social patterns familiar to both students. She ate with other international students during meals, throughout the first term, only occasionally eating at tables with domestic students. In the first few weeks of school, faculty members overheard some domestic students asking, "Why aren't they acting like part of the community? Why do they want to be separate?" and others asking, "What are we doing to keep them out?"
During Tabitha's first semester, a situation developed in which she was not directly involved, but one in which raised difficult issues for the international students and the wider Seminary community. International students have their own organization for mutual support, the International Student Forum. Early in the fall, two male international students, Jonathan Bul and Paul Simmons, privately spoke to the student president of the Forum. They had just received obscene telephone calls in the middle of the night. The president told them (by their later report) not to make trouble about it. Later, however, an older African student, Daniel Alier, came to the Assistant Dean for Community Life and said, "Jonathan and Paul are not happy and not sleeping well." The Dean asked, "Why are they not sleeping?" "Because the telephone rings in the night." Thinking that family members from Africa might be ignoring the time difference, she asked, "Is their family calling?" "No, their family has not called at all. It is very hard for families to call." "Who has called?" "They do not know." "What does the person say?" "Whoever it is says evil things." "What sort of things?" Daniel would not say, but indicated that the words were disturbing. The Assistant Dean immediately made contact with Jonathan and Paul, who after a similar protracted conversation confirmed that they had been receiving harassing calls. After several subsequent meetings, while the two students continued to receive calls, and reported to the Assistant Dean that other international students did not wish to help them, she said, "The only way to get telephone company records so as to locate the source of the calls made is to file a police complaint." The two students said, again and again, "No! No! We cannot call the police." They appeared horrified at the thought of any contact with the police for any reason, and adamantly refused. Whatever steps could be taken anyway were in fact taken, however, and for some reason the calls stopped. During the winter and then again in the spring, two domestic students learned of the calls, and raised the issue in a class meeting: why had the whole community not been notified as soon as the administration knew? What had the administration done to identify and punish the perpetrators? The Acting Dean explained that everything was being done that could be done, and that the privacy of the affected individuals was at issue. Later in the spring, two other domestic students, who are close to some international students, launched the mass signing of a public letter about the calls, without consulting first with the two affected students or any member of the administration. The two affected international students called the Acting Dean and made a Saturday appointment to complain about renewed calls, about the lack of support from officers in the International Student Forum, and (while honoring the domestic students' motives) to say the public letter had made things worse for them.
It is not clear if Tabitha had any knowledge that other students were receiving harassing calls. She had other issues, however. Not long after her arrival in the fall, Mary Mbiti accompanied Tabitha to the office of the Assistant Dean for Admissions and Community Life. Mary spoke directly to the Assistant Dean, and Tabitha, younger, kept silence during the whole interview. "We are concerned and very unhappy." "Can you tell me the source of your unhappiness?" "Things are not right. Colonialist patterns have hurt our people and continue to hurt them." "Do you see colonialist patterns here?" After several more such questions and answers, Mary said, "We wish to know why it is that we have not been admitted to a degree program and the Americans have been. This is very bad. Your diploma is no good in our country; we need to have a degree." The Assistant Dean explained our policy: only after a semester's work could the faculty assess international students' readiness to do degree work, since it was so difficult to assess from paper applications. She did not say to them what she had been hearing from faculty members, that Mary Mbiti did not seem to have much interest in learning anything new, whereas Tabitha (who had kept silence all this time) was giving strong evidence of using her time well. A difficult decision impended. Neither Mary nor Tabitha said anything further, but body language seemed to indicate that Mary was angry and did not accept the explanation. Not long after, individual domestic students began to raise the policy issue in small groups and then in student government, in a class meeting and at "Dean's Table" (a weekly meeting between administrative faculty and student officers). A small group of domestic students wrote a letter to the administration, protesting the policy as "abominable" discrimination that was "hurting our brothers and sisters." (See Appendix D for a discussion of the policy of not admitting international students directly to degree programs.) The objective evidence of Tabitha's transcript shows good academic work becoming excellent, B's and soon A's: she was doing well. In particular, her written work improved rapidly during her first semester. The Seminary had hired professional writing tutors some years ago, primarily to help international students. That had expanded into a Writing Center available for all students. Tabitha used their services and learned quickly how to write the independent-minded, analytical papers valued in the US Mary was not doing as well. She continued to write fairly literal repetitions of lectures or readings, which usually ended in a short paragraph against cultural imperialism. Nonetheless, her work was passing: C's and a few B‘s. In February, the faculty admitted Tabitha to the MTS program without debate. There was debate, however, about admitting Mary to the MTS. Some argued that since she was doing passing work, it was unjust to reject her. Others argued that, given grade inflation, C's were technically passing but in fact far from good work, and that Mary was taking a place that others would use to better effect. In the end, on a majority vote, the faculty admitted her.
Professors have been heard wondering what international students actually learn that may be of benefit to them in their own lands and cultures. Our degree programs come with many requirements, not deliberately adapted to international students. Some flexibility was found for Tabitha; because she had earned a prior theological degree, it was possible to excuse her from many basic requirements. She was able to take independent studies, e.g. "Feminism from an African Perspective," and she was able to specialize in Old Testament, including a year of Hebrew. In contrast, Mary Mbiti could not be excused from any courses on the basis of prior work. An ethics professor, who had questions about the relevance of much of what the African students were required to learn at VTS, had those doubts deepened when another international student, Paul Simmons, explained to him why his answers on a closed-book exam were identical to a student study guide. Paul said that he had absolutely no need for the knowledge, but only wished to pass the exam. Thus he had memorized the information by rote and then forgotten it all once the exam was over.
Occasionally other faculty members have been heard wondering aloud if the perspective international students bring to the classroom is honored any better than domestic students': what do "we" learn from "them?" A church history teacher recently told the story of one particularly startling academic encounter in an introductory class. Mary and Tabitha were in a discussion section with ten domestic students discussing the twelfth century biography of an influential ascetic. Frieda, a domestic student with a counseling background, said, "This is the story of a victim of anorexia; clearly she is ill." Mary said, "No! She is only trying to follow Christ." Jeff, another domestic student, said, "This is the case of someone whose religious formation taught to hate her body and to punish herself. We can thank God that we are learning how to heal such people." Tabitha spoke: "She is choosing to eat as poor people eat. She is clothed as the poor are clothed. She took off her shoes, since poor people have no shoes. She wounds herself as Jesus was wounded for us." Another domestic student immediately said, "What did the medieval church do about people who were insane?" By the end of the section, it was clear to the teacher that the two international students saw the ascetic as someone deliberately identifying with the poor and thus with Christ in his suffering; the domestic students saw the ascetic as a self-mutilating anorexic who needed professional mental care. He said to another colleague in church history, "I think those two perspectives had much to teach each other, but there's no sign it happened."
Pastoral issues can also reveal cultural differences. Tabitha's deeply Christ-centered spirit, her good work and quick learning, her dependence on her older, dominant classmate, and her apparent quietness and deference in the community meant that she did not demand much pastoral attention during her first year. It was easy to assume that she, as a single person, was unlikely to have the sort of family crisis that beset other students. Married international students are not permitted to bring their families to live in the US during their study. While here, many of them learn of severe problems being suffered by their families at home. To keep students in touch with their cultures and churches, and to renew their life in family, the Seminary routinely arranges and pays for students accepted into a multi-year degree program to fly home during summer, but not otherwise. Halfway through Tabitha's second year, her elder companion, Mary, came to the office of the Assistant Dean. "Things are not well with Tabitha," she said. After many questions, the Assistant Dean learned that a member of Tabitha's extended family had died and that it was very painful for her to be absent from her family. After the Assistant Dean spoke directly to Tabitha, it emerged that during the eighteen months of her study here, three members of her family had died. To the Dean, Tabitha seemed close to desperation and was giving signs of clinical depression. The Assistant Dean explained it later to an administrative meeting: "Tabitha is a member of an extended family-kinship group. The deaths had a huge impact on her: she was part of, she belonged to that family in a way more intense than for us, and it was shaming and grieving for her to be absent. It isn't right for us to see her separation from her family as less crucial because in our eyes she is ‘single.' In her culture, personal presence after a family death, at the funeral and during the time of grieving, is a really big deal. In her family, she functions as a ‘Christ-person,' and she's needed when they've had such trauma." In a major exception to Seminary policies, after many consultations, the Seminary paid for Tabitha to go home for a month at Christmas. She returned to VTS and was able to complete her degree, writing a good thesis on "Biblical Inheritance from African Perspective."
Graduation time is special for almost everyone at VTS, with many students bringing family, friends, and mentors to share in the worship, celebration, and ceremony. International students are no exception. VTS pays to bring the spouses of international students to campus for graduation for a stay of two weeks to a month, so that the students can celebrate, and so that the spouses will have some sense of the environment in which the student has been living and studying. Tabitha (who had no spouse) went to see the Assistant Dean herself, and entered into long negotiations that culminated in her father coming to see her graduate. The next summer the Director of Field Education was on an immersion experience in East Africa. One evening, a bishop with whom he was working said, "You know, you are very generous to bring wives and husbands to visit their students when they receive their degrees. But the time with you for the wife is too short. They really cannot understand the American culture at all in so short a time." The Director said, "What problems does that cause?" "Oh, it is very difficult for the marriages; they do not know how to talk about the student's life during all that time." The Director, knowing that the Bishop had studied in Chicago for two years, asked, "Was it difficult for you?" "Not as bad; but I found a way to bring my wife to Chicago for the last nine months. Thus we could understand each other when we later spoke about my time in America." Otherwise, he said, the disparity of experience would have created great strains in their marriage.
After graduation, Mary Mbiti returned to her land, husband, and family. Within six months, however, she was back visiting professors at VTS, requesting letters of recommendation and financial support for doctoral work. Tabitha Mlango returned to her ministry in East Africa, where she continues to teach Old Testament. She is also active in helping raise questions about the situation of women among Christian communities in her land. She too has explored (by letter) the possibility of returning to the USA for doctoral work. Crisis has not ceased in her family: her brother, then her sister-in-law, have since died of AIDS, and all their children left "in cold air," in her words, like so many, many others. She reports having been able to offer real spiritual and material help to them and the rest of her family.
APPENDICES
A. The Significance of International Students at VTS
International students make up about six percent of the student body at VTS, and their problems might thus seem marginal. In fact they are important to VTS' mission for several reasons. First, an important aspect of VTS' ethos is global: above the chapel altar is lettered, "Go Ye Into All the World and Preach the Gospel" (see Appendix B for global mission). The Board of Trustees' 1998 Strategic Plan charges the Seminary to expand its international initiatives. It is already a center for international meetings among Anglican leaders. Its library is becoming a repository for Anglican materials from dioceses around the world. International students who receive degrees or diplomas from VTS are routinely elected bishop or moved to other positions of major leadership when they return home, so that its alumni/ae have disproportionate influence in the Anglican Communion worldwide. The international students presently studying at VTS thus have a larger role—substantive, symbolic, and representative—in the Seminary's ethos than their numbers imply. Second, the issues facing international students have analogues among domestic students. VTS has an increasing focus on the varied cultural contexts of ministry, and on equipping students to cross-cultural boundaries in order to convey the Gospel to all persons. Further, the experience of being uprooted from a family, country, church, and culture, and being sent to study in a strange language in a strange place is common to almost all of our students, although it is more radical for international students. Their intense culture shock and communication difficulties bring into focus the less radical shock and difficulty encountered by the majority of students (the phrase "eschatological eucharistic prolepsis" is not heard in most American shopping malls). Fourth, the cost of international students in money and staff/ community time is very great, substantially greater than for domestic students. Issues of stewardship can be poignant. Fifth, hospitality is a basic Jewish and Christian virtue; one of VTS's more prized media of evangelism is being hospitable to strangers. Success or failure in welcoming these obvious stringers has wide resonance.
B. Global Mission and the History of International Students at VTS
Between 1840 and 1960, Virginia Theological Seminary was the most active missionary seminary in the Episcopal Church. Missions by VTS graduates to Greece, Liberia, Japan, China, Cuba, and Brazil expanded and flowered. From the middle of the nineteenth century on, some of those missions began to send a few indigenous Christian leaders back to VTS to study or for "exposure." Their number was much smaller than the number of VTS graduates going overseas.
The high point of overseas mission for VTS was the class of 1950, from which one-fourth spent
some time in foreign missions. Such numbers waned dramatically in the 1960s. By the early 1970s, the number of international students studying at VTS outnumbered the domestic students intending to go abroad.
With the growth in the understanding of global communion and global partnership among churches in the Anglican Communion, VTS has become a premier site for theological education for a wide spectrum of church leaders from Africa, Central and South America, and Asia. The last four VTS Deans have seen the Seminary's work with international students as a continuation of its missionary heritage. This has been supported consistently by the Board of Trustees, and is one of the bases for a new program, the Center for Anglican Communion Studies. VTS is already a significant meeting place for Anglicans worldwide, with leaders from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the former Vice President of the Southern Sudan paying extended visits, and international committees coming into residence to do their work. At this summer's Lambeth Conference (at which, every ten years, the bishops of the whole Anglican Communion meet), VTS was permitted to hold an Academic Convocation in Canterbury Cathedral, awarding honorary degrees to two graduates now bishops, one from Taiwan and the other from the Church of South India.
C. Admissions Standards for International Students
VTS application procedures are different for international students than for domestic ones, and that in itself is controversial. No interview is normally possible for international students, and so none is required. For domestic students, an interview is invariably required. The Seminary seeks (but in practice must sometimes waive) a TOEFL score, to give objective information about English fluency, rather than the GRE (required for domestic students), which is hard to find in many parts of the world. As academic systems differ, so does academic documentation. Thus international applications are difficult to evaluate. Tabitha's qualifications were more thoroughly documented than many: she had earned a B.D. from a theological college in which work was done in English. One implication of this is that it is exceptionally difficult to evaluate the academic background and potential of international students, which has had consequences for the Seminary's willingness to admit them directly to degree programs.
There are several other admission requirements for international students which are shaped differently from requirements for domestic students. First, :the local ecclesiastical authority—normally diocese—must unequivocally recommend the applicant, no matter what the program applied for. That is true only for those domestic students who are in the M.Div. Program Tabitha, for example, offered letters of support from all relevant church associates and authorities. Second, the local ecclesiastical authority must guarantee the financial provision for the applicant's immediate family. VTS does not supply funds to the student's family, and does not permit international students to bring their families to the USA, except in very exceptional circumstances. Third, the Seminary seeks to assess the reach and scope of applicants' ministry in their own context. How significant will the applicant's work be at home? Because Tabitha was a woman with a teaching ministry in theological education, for example, the reach and significance of her work appeared to be great, and to be of a sort that might well be enhanced by advanced education. Fourth, international applicants must certify that they will indeed return home after their study. This is not required of domestic students. Fifth, international students are not required to disclose their financial resources when applying for a scholarship, on the assumption that they have no resources that would be helpful in paying for education in an industrialized country. They are also not required to find other sources of financial aid. Domestic students are required to use their own resources to pay for their education if they can, and if they seek financial aid, they must seek it from other Sources than just the Seminary.
D. Delayed Admission to Degree Programs
In principle, VTS does not admit international students to degree programs until they have been in residence at least one term. The "norm" is admission to a one-year diploma program; "exceptions" may later be made, by subsequent admission to a two-year M. T.S. There are several rationales for this policy. First, too long a stay in the USA makes it difficult for students to return to their own cultures. Second, the difficulty in assessing applicants' educational achievement and readiness for American education has led to serious caution in committing the Seminary to more than one year, sight unseen. Third, it is hard to know if international students can creatively adapt to their new circumstances and tolerate their culture shock and separation until they are in situ.
The significance of an American or European degree (as opposed to a diploma) is very great in many countries around the world, and students who come here very badly want to earn a real degree. VTS does not currently offer any degrees that can be earned in one year. For a few years VTS had one degree program, the Master of Arts in Christian Education, that could be completed in one year by students having a prior theological degree. This program attracted many international students, even though Christian Education was not their main interest. At present, however, degree programs are all at least two years. VTS's one-year programs offer a "diploma," which we have learned carries a stigma in much of the world. Recently the Seminary renamed its diplomas "Postgraduate Diploma," in imitation of British universities.
This rule is a matter of debate and controversy from time to time. The majority of domestic students are admitted to degree programs upon entry, a disparity that is felt keenly by some. It can be seen as leaving international students in a sort of limbo while they are on trial. Some in the community regard such special conditions as singling international students out in an unhelpful way, even as racist. Others regard them simply as good stewardship for the mission of the church. The controversy is heightened by apparent exceptions to the rule, e.g. the former practice of admitting some Liberian students to the three-year M.Div. Program Currently one student from Central America, from a diocese still part of the American Episcopal Church, is not formally considered an international student, although he was elected to office in the International Student Forum. He still was admitted straight into the three-year M.Div. Program and in the second year brought his family into residence.
E. Policy on International Students Coming Without Their Families
It is the stated policy at VTS that international students on scholarship may not bring their families into residence at VTS. The Seminary does pay for students in multi-year programs to return home over the summer, and for the spouse to attend Commencement. There are many reasons for not permitting international student families to come into residence. The costs would be vastly greater, so many fewer international students could come. Assisting the arrival and enculturation of a whole family, from visas to schools, would obviously be far more difficult and demanding in staff time, community time, and money. The Seminary has been apprehensive that the rate of return to the student's country of origin would drop dramatically, based on considerable if isolated experience.
While the policy has caused considerable controversy, conversations with African churches have assured the Seminary that, first, education apart from family is the pattern for higher education in much of Africa itself, and, second, that the churches recognize that bringing families would mean that fewer students could come and that resettling the families at home after an extended time in America would be difficult. Still, the separation causes many problems. One student from Congo had his family scattered by civil war, without any way of finding them; another West African student's bishop did not meet his responsibility to care for the student's family, which, the student discovered after some months without news, was actually starving.
F. Orientation and Student Support
The Rev. Margaret McNaughton-Ayers, Assistant Dean for Admissions and Community Life, The Rev. Dr. Richard Jones, Professor of Mission and World Religions, and the Rev. Jacques Hadler, Director of Field Education, all have extensive international experience of various sorts and are very active in orientation. In addition, a staff member works with the students on tax and social security matters and another staff member on visa matters, among many others who get involved. International students are also required to take a weekly "cross-cultural colloquy" for academic credit for the first year. In that class, Dr. Jones and Mr. Hadler have designed and oversee a structured weekly discussion group, in which a model of analytical and theological reflection on a current event offers perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing international students. Some international students have privately complained to others that the gains from the course do not justify its demands on their time and effort; other observers attribute that reaction to initial discomfort with the non-traditional modes of teaching employed in the class.
Domestic students become ‘sponsors' of particular international students, and international students are paired with parishes where they can have a liturgical or other ministerial role. There are strict, and frequently violated, rules against students soliciting funds from those parishes or other sources. Their people at home appear to expect that the students will send money, no matter what local provisions have been made, and the pressure of those expectations, as well as of personal needs, can be great. This has often given rise to serious conflict, as international students confront American affluence.
Hospitality to these strangers is no light matter. It is expensive in money. Sorting through the tangles of immigration, visa, taxation, family support, church support, community life, spiritual growth, and physical and emotional wellness call for a good deal of staff and faculty time and
creativity.
G. Culture Shock and Sharing Life in Christian Community
Formation for ministry by living in community—learning, living, praying together—has been usually been regarded by VTS as essential for domestic students, in spite of the burdens it imposes. Residence on the Seminary Hill obviously has even greater burdens for international students. It is a time of separation from family, land, language, culture, and church. It is common for international students to be deeply disturbed by some American patterns of life, reflected at the Seminary, that seem to some of them immoral: ignorance and indifference toward the rest of the world, waste, drinking and smoking, sexual immorality, secularization. For any community members whose appearance and accent are not European in origin, the gauntlet of racism, from crude verbal assault to subtle, discounting assumptions, must be run daily, on-Hill and off. Many international students are Anglican evangelicals, and find the somewhat more catholic customs of the Episcopal Church strange. American individualism is particularly problematic, in quite practical ways. For example, African students simply cannot accept that an American student would drive off to the store alone, without asking a group to come with him. Other patterns may attract and yet sometimes threaten, e.g. far greater freedom of thought and choice, political participation by the people, struggle for gender equity. Loneliness, grief, anomie, and anger—usually suppressed—are one natural result. Headaches, digestive disturbance, and many other illnesses are frequent among international students.
At the same time, stimulation, excitement, new encounter, and new learning are also natural results. Friendships grow across cultures; associations are made that are renewed in later years. Many international students grow in discernment, as they learn to see and praise the work of God in a very different culture from their own. One member of the faculty was ordained to the priesthood by a Ugandan bishop who was doing an MTS at the Seminary, and they have crossed paths with mutual joy many times. The seminary Missionary Society supports a dozen ministries annually that are presented by international alumni/AE The presence of a bishop from one of the most embattled parts of Sudan, whose people live in the daily threat of death by overt religious persecution or politically manipulated starvation, had a powerful impact on the whole community's understanding of the way of the Cross. That transforming encounter led many to wonder why it does not happen more often: how fully are international students invited to shape this community through their shared experience and witness? Tabitha Mlango herself, like many international students, was quiet and reserved in most relationships, giving the impression of keeping many of her thoughts to herself. That reserve is common among international students.
H. Academic Challenges Facing International Students
Academic challenges abound for international students, in ways that may help focus the challenges faced by domestic students. Unfamiliar concepts, language, teaching techniques, and expectations can be frustrating and limiting to an adult learner from New York who comes with only a background in computer systems, as well as to an East African parish priest. Tabitha's good background, linguistic skills, intelligence, and diligence helped her meet those challenges more successfully than many other students, international and domestic alike.
One fundamental issue is the extent to which USA study equips international students to minister in their own cultures and countries after their return. Another fundamental issue is the extent to which their presence may change domestic students and faculty. The basic assumption of the VTS curriculum is that international students should find a way to learn what they need in our pre-existent course offerings: "they" join "us." Special independent studies may be devised and taken, and a real effort is made to excuse international students from irrelevant or repetitive study and thus to adapt requirements to their needs.
Still, academic obstacles for international students are many. Language is perhaps the chief: oral and written English and is difficult for many international students, for whom English is often a third or fourth language. The volume of reading is difficult for most domestic students; it is thus daunting indeed for international students. What international students privately complain of most frequently is the strange accent of Americans: American-accented English is particularly obscure for those educated in a system of British origin, so that following lectures and class discussions is especially difficult. American expectations for written papers that weigh evidence and insights independently, shaping theses and arguments of one's own while clearly attributing sources, are often entirely new. Serious tutorial support for writing for international students has long been necessary, and it was expanded when it became clear that many domestic students had serious writing problems as well. One professor in church history, who had just graded and returned the first paper of the term, met in the corridor outside the classroom with four international students. They asked, "It seems that you marked our papers, not only on what we learned, but on our English." They did not say that they considered that unfair. He explained that he graded all students' papers, no matter where they were from, in part on the quality of communication, since clear communication was critical for Christian ministry. If he were to exclude international students from that consideration, the diploma or degree they earned would be devalued. He had heard, he said to them, that in at least one African diocese a recent VTS graduate was told that he only got the degree because the seminary had lower standards for international students. Thus it seemed important to him to treat all equally. Yet he himself, he said, had spent a year in a foreign country using a strange language, and he did understand personally what a difficult burden it was. The students appeared to accept this explanation, and appeared to make much more diligent use of the writing tutors.
It has also been necessary to clarify American standards of plagiarism repeatedly for international students, and in practice to enforce those standards gradually and flexibly. Another challenge for some international students is to develop critical (analytic and synthetic) skills in reading and assessing the thought of others, and developing their own thought, skills which may not have been developed in their prior education. In church history, Asian and African students expect as a matter of course to be required to memorize the Chalcedonian Formula for Christ's one Person and two Natures, because that is how one learns authoritative words. But a domestic student angrily rejected being tested on anything memorized: "Adult learners don't learn by doing memory dumps. They learn better through analysis." The apparent assumption of some other American students, that as adults they can decide for themselves if Chalcedon has anything to say, is off-putting to some international students, who do not value that individualism. Learning to use the electronic technology that has become standard here is also a challenge to some international students.
One question that lurks beneath the surface is the value of this educational experience for international students, who make such sacrifices for it. Many on the faculty believe that students like Tabitha do in fact benefit from the education VTS offers, and that the churches they serve benefit as well. The broad education offered here is broader and more integrated than the much more specialized British- or French-origin systems. Virtually all our courses operate on the assumption that there are multiple Christian perspectives on issues, to be encountered and assessed by faithful Christians, and thus we have a reduced emphasis on learning fixed answers. We also offer excellent teaching of basic skills, such as biblical languages, that may not easily be found everywhere in the world. The expansion of horizon that may come with cross-cultural education has other advantages, to persons who will be leaders in a global communion. It is also a concrete advantage to gain real fluency in American English. Many international students who complete degree programs here return to their countries with considerably enhanced power and status, which may correspond to enhanced scope and depth in ministry.