Project hopes to bring Iraqi students to U.S.

LIZ LAVIN DEPUTY EDITOR EAL723@CABRINI EDU

JAMIE HUFNAGLE NEWS EDITOR JLH729@CABRINI EDU

ASHLEY COOK NEWS EDITOR AAC722@CABRINI EDU

Over the past two decades, Iraq’s universities have deteriorated from a highly advanced system to one that is barely existent today. To fix this, a team of people from Damascus, Syria to Villanova, Pa. has come together to assist select college-age students in Iraq to pursue higher education in the United States. The plan is that the Iraqi students would then return home to help rebuild their country. The Iraqi Student Project began in the summer of 2007 and is still in the development stage.

With Iraq’s higher education system in ruins, the Iraqi Student Project seeks to make a small effort toward reconciliation and restitution.

Living in Syria since 2005, two Americans, Gabe Huck and Theresa Kubasak, see the effects of young Iraqis who experienced the violence in Baghdad. Young Iraqis have had to discontinue their education and flee their country as refugees to Syria. After seeing young people live without education everyday for two years, Huck and Kubasack were determined to “find some way, however small, to help some number of these students,” Huck said.

The Iraqi Student Project is inspired by the Bosnian Student Project, which was developed in 1993. During the war in Bosnia, the BSP brought over 150 Bosnian students to American colleges, where their tuition was waived. The BSP was extremely successful and was the influence that Huck and Kubasak needed to get their own project off the ground. Many of the Bosnian students who studied in America are at work in Bosnia today, which is the goal of the ISP.

Both Huck and Kubasak head the project and currently reside in Syria where they are making attempts to help rebuild the education system in hopes of putting Iraq back together.

“Iraq has thousands of years being a place where people love and respect education,” Huck said. “We grew up calling it the cradle of civilization.”

The Iraqi Student Project aims to give Iraqi students the opportunity to pursue their educations in the United States. After a thorough screening process, students who are eligible to study in the United States are those who will succeed upon their return to Iraq-those who have “strong English, are good students and are as emotionally healthy as possible after what they’ve been through,” Huck said. Students must go through extensive interviews along with several tests, background checks and government screenings.

Michele Pistone is a professor of law at Villanova University School of Law and a member of the board of directors for the project. Pistone learned about the project through a clinic about people fleeing persecution in their home countries.

“Iraq, historically, is a country that has put a lot into education,”

Pistone said. “We’re talking about a country that wants to improve their education in hopes for people to go back and rebuild.”

Pistone explained the process of the project. An American college needs to first agree to accept Iraqi students on scholarship.

“People will come here and see opportunities and bring them back to Iraq,” Pistone said. “Once their country is stable, the opportunities will continue to grow.”

Students can get involved with this project by talking to their administration, creating support groups and clubs, talking to other students and looking beyond the perception that many Americans have of Iraqi citizens.

“Our perception of them is different,” Pistone said. “You would be surprised by how modern many of the Iraqi students really are.”

The ISP is hoping to bring 20 students to America in its first year. The hope is that the integration of Iraqi students into American society will change Americans’ perception of Iraqis, as well as Iraqis’ perception of Americans.

“Some [Iraqis] have a hard time believing they can expect anything good from America now,” Huck said. “But most recognize that the violence the US unleashed in Iraq wasn’t the will of most Americans.”

“We’re going to be changing them, but they are going to be changing us,” Pistone said.

Once the Iraqis are back, they will, ideally, help rebuild their country, take up new jobs and help their generation lead as much of a normal life as possible.

“The sad thing would be to lose this generation,” Pistone said.

Editorial

Looking into the new year

As finals week once again rolls around, stressed faces, messy hair and sweat shirts and pants grace our campus. Yet another semester is coming to a close and oh what a semester this has been. To start it off, President Iadarola announced her retirement after presiding as president of Cabrini College for the past 16 years. After years of building this college community and allowing muchneeded growth to occur, she will step down and hand off the reigns to someone new.

As the search for a new President went underway, an incident occurred which shook the emotions of the campus community. Yet another stabbing; which was the second in two years, occurred in the early hours of a Saturday morning in October.

One event everyone should look out for next semester is Ishmael Beah, author of “A Long Way Gone,” a personal account of his life as a boy soldier in the Sierra Leone will be speaking at Cabrini.

In this week’s issue of the Loquitur, we are breaking a story about The Iraqi Student Project. Still in the very beginning stages, a professor of law from Villanova University is working to have colleges and universities around the United States bring over an Iraqi student and provide them with full tuition, room and board.

Americans take for granted the amount of opportunities we are able to achieve just by living in this country. As a result of the War in Iraq, Iraqi students are no longer able to attend Universities. The violence had become such an issue in Iraq that students’ attendance rates were drastically dropping.

According to a report released last year by NGO Save the Children, 818,000 primary school-aged children, representing 22 percent of Iraq’s student population, were not attending school. The number of attacks on schools as well was also a reason as to why the schools had such a decline in students.

Although much more information is to come in the upcoming months, there are still automatic opinions by people when learning about the opportunity to bring Iraqi students to America. Some may think it’s an amazing opportunity for those people to be given a second chance since their education system has been shut down. Others may feel that it’s not fair to give free tuition, room and board to anyone but American students.

Colleges and universities are giving full tuition, room and board to many people from many different countries. Although mostly for sports scholarships, it still is a fact that the United States gives a person from another country an amazing opportunity to come here and get a great education.

The holidays are a time to give thanks for what you have, and to work on certain aspects of your life that you want to improve.

Attending Cabrini College is a wonderful opportunity for everyone and definitely something to be thankful for. We have to look at the situation in Iraq and give thanks that our education system has not been shut down.