Dear Mr. President,

We write, as leaders of American educational, research, and exchange institutions, to suggest an initiative which will have profound and enduring consequences for US-Vietnam relations and will expand your Administration’s legacy of normalization of diplomatic and trade ties with a former adversary.

One of the greatest challenges facing Vietnam is to produce the educated workforce and leadership needed to renovate the country’s economy, legal system and governance. US colleges and universities make an important contribution to many countries with similar modernization goals, educating half a million international students annually. However, barely 1,500 come from Vietnam, largely family supported undergraduates. Given that country’s economic realities, the number of Vietnamese students who can afford advanced study in the US will remain small without a substantial infusion of resources.

Vietnam is required to transfer annually an estimated $7.5 - 9 million to the US over twenty years in payment of the former Saigon government’s war time debt of $150 million. We are not calling for conventional forgiveness of this unusual debt but rather, as a bold act of reconciliation, reallocation of the payment into a Scholarship Fund to support the training of Vietnamese students at US institutions of higher learning.

If the US reprograms Vietnam’s transfers in this way, its government will still be obligated to meet acknowledged bilateral fiscal obligations. The US economy will continue to benefit through the Scholarship Fund’s payments to American institutions for the Vietnamese students’ tuition, fees, insurance, housing, meals and travel on US carriers. Both countries will receive greater benefit from an investment in US training of Vietnam’s new generation of teachers, scientists, entrepreneurs, civil servants and political leaders.

Grants from such a Scholarship Fund might also be used to cover the US-based costs of Americans wishing to study in Vietnam, e.g. their home university tuition and fees, health insurance, and international air travel on US carriers, to the benefit of our classrooms, businesses and foreign policy institutions.

Vietnam has already demonstrated the importance it attaches to education by committing its own national budget to sending 400 graduate and professional students abroad each year, one fourth of them to the US and Canada. With the creation of this Scholarship Fund, and support from American universities, that number could be dramatically increased, with great impact on Vietnam’s need for trained leadership in every sector and on long-term ties between our peoples.

Initiating signers
Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council
Allan Goodman, President, Institute of International Education
Stanley O. Ikenberry, President, American Council on Education
Marlene Johnson, Executive Director, NAFSA: Association of International Educators
Stevan Trooboff, President and CEO, Council on International Educational Exchange

Additional signatures by Presidents and Chancellors of Universities (as of 11/9/00)

Lloyd W. Benjamin, III President, Indiana State University; Terre Haute, IN

Roger W. Bowen President, SUNY New Paltz; New Paltz, NY

Scott S. Cowen President, Tulane University; New Orleans, LA

Robert A. Corrigan President, San Francisco State University; San Francisco, CA

Alan F. Harre President, Valparaiso University; Valparaiso, IN

Garry D. Hays President, United States International University; San Diego, CA

Dennis L. Hefner President, SUNY Fredonia; Fredonia, NY

Margaret B. Lee President, Oakton Community College; Des Plaines, IL

Georgia E. Lesh-Laurie Chancellor, University of Colorado at Denver; Denver, CO

Roger W. Mandle President, Rhode Island School of Design; Providence, RI

David Maxwell President, Drake University; Des Moines, IA

Edward Alton Parrish President, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Worcester, MA

Terry P. Roark President, Montana State University; Bozeman, MT

Salvatore Rotella President, Riverside Community College; Riverside, CA

George Rupp President, Columbia University; New York, NY

John W. Shumaker President, University of Louisville; Louisville, KY

Andrew A. Sorensen President, University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa, AL

Marlene Springer President, College of Staten Island; Staten Island, NY

Salme Harju Steinberg President, Northeastern Illinois University; Chicago, IL

Judson H. Taylor President, SUNY Cortland; Cortland, NY

Baird Tipson President, Wittenberg University; Springfield, OH

Larry N. Vanderhoef Chancellor, University of California, Davis; Davis, CA

Steven R. Wall President, Pierce College; Puyallup, WA

Diana Chapman Walsh President, Wellesley College; Wellesley, MA

David Ward Chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Madison, WI

Stephen L. Weber President, San Diego State University; San Diego, CA

Albert Yates President, Colorado State University; Ft. Collins, CO