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International Students
Robert B. Kaplan
To the Editor:
The article by Betty Neal Crutcher, “Mentoring across Cultures” ( July–August), constituted a surprise; apparently drawing from her dissertation, Crutcher discusses “cross-cultural mentoring.” But she has omitted the most experienced and most qualified cross-cultural mentors.
In the years following World War II, international students began to flood into colleges and universities in the United States (and in other countries). The influx has continued over the past sixty years; there are presently more than half a million international students (Open Doors, 2006). Some fifty years ago, the professional groups directly involved with that population—advisers of foreign students and scholars, teachers of English as a second language, academic admissions officers and community groups assisting those students—organized themselves into the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers, now NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Members of this professional association have long engaged in cross-cultural mentoring. A substantial literature on the subject, tertiary-level academic courses for individuals seeking training, and a major annual international conference are all available. Admittedly, these counselors with under-represented groups; it is unlikely that the skills and knowledge developed by these counselors could be applied directly to domestic minorities. But surely a base of skills and knowledge might carry over the existing strengths to the newly recognized needs.
Simultaneously, teachers of English as a second language have organized themselves into a professional body known as Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Over time, the members of that organization have reconfigured themselves into specialized organizations like the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Scholars working in these areas have studied the language responsible for misunderstandings between the majority community and domestic minorities. Individuals undertaking to mentor members of indigenous minorities might wish to consult Madeleine Youmans’s Chicano-Anglo Conversations: Truth, Honesty, and Politeness (2007).
Robert B. Kaplan
(Linguistics)
University of Southern California
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