For the past eight years Brigham Young University Hawaii has been conservatively developing relationships with various universities and programs that enable our international students to maintain stronger educational ties with their homelands and enhance their opportunities for returnability.
Dr. Keith Roberts, BYU-Hawaii Vice President of Academics, explains these relationships and programs fall into three broad categories: agreements with other universities that affect incoming students, students in-country, and exiting students. Some are formal articulation agreements dubbed 3+1.
"Articulation means you can take a course here or there, and it will count on the opposite side," Roberts says. "This reduces redundancy, and therefore is more efficient for both universities."
"The 3+1 version of these agreements involves developing joint programs or specific agreements where students spend three years at BYU-Hawaii and their last year at a specific university but earn a degree from BYU-Hawaii, or sometimes from both universities."
Incoming students
"We started in 1997 after the National University of Samoa was opened in Apia. President Shumway had promised to send a delegation there to develop cooperative relationships," says Roberts, who led a BYUH faculty team to the South Pacific that year.
"That was our first agreement. It allows our students to spend their first year at the National University of Samoa, and then transfer up, and we will accept the credits."
"We also signed an agreement at that time with American Samoa Community College. That was the first agreement they had signed with any university. Dr. Salu Hunkin, a BYU-Hawaii alumna ('68) who was the president at that time, went on to get other agreements based on our model."
Arapata Meha ('83), BYU-Hawaii Associate Dean of Admissions with responsibility for Pacific island applicants, says such agreements definitely benefit the university, the students and their families.
"Students can transfer with up to 30 credits that align with our degrees," he says. "It's economically advantageous for them to do this, and there's an Institute [of Religion] right across the street. In terms of numbers, we're looking at 15 students a year from NUS in Apia, and 10 from American Samoa Community College. They're not large numbers, but they are on a pathway to BYU-Hawaii."
For example, Meha notes only about 20% of "all the LDS applying from Samoa initially qualify for admission. Therefore, the 80% we direct to the university and the community college there have been tremendously successful when they apply here."
"In Tonga, only about 10% of the LDS applicants from Liahona and Saineha High Schools qualify straight up as freshman, because we've raised the bar," he continues, explaining BYU-Hawaii encourages the others to go to the Tongan seventh form or to take the foundations program at the University of the South Pacific. "We have an informal agreement with USP," he adds.
Roberts explains that seventh form in the British-oriented South Pacific schools "is roughly equivalent to the first year of an American university degree. Before my first trip to Fiji in 1997, there was a perception that BYU-Hawaii was not of as high a quality as the University of the South Pacific. The reason was, that in order to get in the USP, you had to pass seventh form with a passing score. In order to get into BYU-Hawaii you could enter by completing sixth form."
"In reality," Roberts continues, "the reason USP required seventh form was because it offers a three-year British-style bachelor's degree. We resolved this at BYU-Hawaii by requiring students from Fiji to take the seventh form and pass it with the same score they would need to get into the University of the South Pacific."
"We now treat a seventh form passing score the same way we treat an AP [advanced placement] score from an American high school. Over the years since we've done that, number one: We not only have better prepared students, but we have the perception that we are a higher-quality institution."
Roberts says the same thing applied in New Zealand, "so we changed our requirements for students from there to be the same as getting into a New Zealand university."
As an example, Meha says he works closely with the Auckland Institute of Studies, which signed an articulation agreement in 2000. "They have about 1,800 students, the president is LDS, the academic dean is a former mission president, and they want to create a student environment very much like BYU-Hawaii. An AIS student who takes their two-semester foundation course can transfer here with about 24 credit hours of general education courses."
"For a student who didn't do well in seventh form, this is another option; and it works the other way, too: A student with a bachelor's degree from BYU-Hawaii can get into one of their master's programs."
"The whole objective is to pre-qualify our students," Meha says. "For example, that's the beauty of the American Samoa Community College: If they have an associate's degree with a 3.0 GPA, they can come right in at BYU-Hawaii and they're right on track to graduate. We've probably had 25 come with an associate's degree from there, and we've given some of them transfer scholarships. Meha also says the university's new policies "send a reassuring message to the Saints that we're trying to help the kids there."
Roberts, who signed an articulation agreement with the French university in Tahiti "which has raised our prestige there," points out agreements such as these work closer to home, too. "As one piece of reorganizing our curriculum in 1997, we established a clearer relationship with then-Rick's College [now BYU-Idaho] and BYU in terms of transferring credits. After the Ricks agreement was acceptable, we extended it to other colleges and areas where there is high LDS enrollment."
"That same year we also signed an agreement with the University of Hawaii community colleges. That means Hawaii students can take their first two years there, and come here as juniors if they have earned an associate's degree. We did this because we knew it was going to get harder and harder for Hawaii students to come here, with the demands on entrance."
"The fact that we've increased the numbers coming with an associate's degree has also had a considerable impact on our graduation rate, especially among our mainland students," Roberts continues. "We're replacing academically high-risk freshmen just out of high school with very low-risk transfer students who we know are serious about coming here to get a degree. It's been very productive and cost-effective for the Church."
In-country programs
Roberts notes BYU-Hawaii began exploring its first 3+1 program in the Pacific in 2004 when he and Meli Lesuma ('87), Director of International Internships, visited the Fiji School of Medicine in Suva and the University of the South Pacific Law School in Vanuatu.
"We went with the idea of having our students move into those professional programs with some of their BYU-Hawaii credits counting toward graduation. We didn't want them to have to start over from scratch," he recalls.
"We are about to formalize these agreements. We've had our professors go to the Fiji School of Medicine, and we've had their professors come here to see our facilities. We're in the process of creating a situation where students spend three years with us, and then go into a program like dentistry, public health or pharmacy, and have the first year of that program count as the final year of their bachelor's program at BYU-Hawaii."
"The Fiji School of Medicine will also count some of the courses our students have had here as some of the foundation courses they need in their professional training."
"The participating students will end up with a bachelor's degree from BYU-Hawaii, and they will also have a professional bachelor's degree from a British-type university. That gives them more flexibility and preparation," says Roberts, who feels this agreement will probably take two years off the total time to earn both degrees. "And in some cases, some of our students will be able to enter into their master's program in public health."
He adds BYU-Hawaii is following up with the law school in Vanuatu "so some of their distance-delivered courses are available to our students as undergraduates. We're working that out so students on our campus can take one or two courses a semester from there; and also to have the law school accept many of our courses that we offer here."
Roberts notes that BYU-Hawaii political science, history, Intercultural Studies (ICS), Pacific Island Studies, Hawaiian Studies and psychology classes "lend themselves well to such an arrangement; but he stresses "this is all at the talking stage. The whole goal is to have people professionally prepared to serve in the target area."
Working in Asia
Roberts also stresses these relationships are developing conservatively. "We're a small university with a small staff, so we're working as quickly as we can on these things, and all of these agreements require a commitment of our resources. We are constantly asked to be involved in signing agreements with international universities, but we do it very carefully."
Two such agreements were recently signed in Mongolia. "In 2004 we proposed to work with Mongolia to develop resources in their country and at the same time increase returnability. Our task force went there and visited about 10 of the principal universities. Our goal was to find the most appropriate and best respected for our students," Roberts says.
"We signed two agreements: One with the Mongolian Health Sciences University, and the other with the Mongolian University of Science and Technology — both in Ulaanbaatar. The first student from the Health Sciences University is on campus now."
In the meantime professors and student interns from BYU-Hawaii, in cooperation with professors in Mongolia, have participated in creating instructional DVDs to provide medical training for physicians in outlying areas of the country. "It is expected that the continuation of this curriculum development project will be funded by the World Health Organization," he adds.
BYU-Hawaii also signed an agreement with the Tourism College of Jilin University in China in 2004. "As a result, two of our professors — Bill Hsu ('78) and Jeff Caneen — have gone there, and we've had a professor from there come here and do joint work with Bill Hsu, who is now serving as a mission president in Taiwan."
"Our intention is to have a 3+1 program there, but the difference is the students will start there and finish here. It's a special relationship, because they are associated with the cultural parks in Shenzhen, which are associated with the Polynesian Cultural Center."
In April 2006 that proposal was modified, and Roberts signed a 2+2 agreement with the Tourism College in Shenzhen that calls for students to start there, finish at BYU-Hawaii, and then return to China to work.
Roberts notes BYU-Hawaii also has agreements in China with Xian International Studies University, Central China Normal University in Wuhan, and Beijing Normal or the Central University of Minorities in Beijing, "but those agreements have to do more with exchanging people than curricula."
He points out some of the relationships call for BYU-Hawaii to give technical assistance, such as the DVD project in Mongolia. "All of this is part of raising our visibility, so BYU-Hawaii graduates will be better recognized in-country."
He also says the university is "not only working on programs where our students can complete their last year in country, but can also get into their graduate programs."
"The biggest impact these agreements will have is returnability," says Michael Sudlow, Associate Dean of Admissions with responsibility for Asian applicants. "That's really what the focus of the university and the Church has been for the past few years. This is one positive way that this can play out."
"In Mongolia," he continues, "our students will not only graduate with a BYU-Hawaii degree, but they will also have a certificate from the most famous university in their own country."
Sudlow would like to see the agreements expand into other Asian countries. "Obviously, the biggest impact will be in the developing countries. We don't have a problem with the quality of education in the developed countries, but it's in countries such as Cambodia, Malaysia and the Philippines where this could have a really profound effect on returnability."
"It will also give us real status in some of these countries with the ministries of education, that we're sister schools with some of their better schools," he says.
Focusing on the School of Education
Roberts says one way BYU-Hawaii wants to focus on the returnability of international students is by "increasing their number as majors in the School of Education."
"We re-examined the idea that international students do not have to be certified in the U.S. to be prepared to teach in their home countries. In fact, they have to be certified in their home countries to teach there. Therefore, the School of Education is restructuring its curriculum for international students so that all or part of their last year will be spent student teaching in their home countries, rather than in the U.S," Roberts says.
"In the Pacific islands, our goal is the same thing," he continues. "For example, if a student wants to teach at Liahona High in Tonga, we don't necessarily want him to student teach at [nearby] Kahuku High."
"We hope to eventually have at least 20 students a year from our target areas doing this. Right now I've asked [School of Education] Dean John Bailey to follow up on some requests we've had from teacher education universities in Korea. We're also currently working with universities in Taiwan."
"In some of the countries, teaching pays so poorly that our students have not been interested, but in Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan teachers get paid okay," Roberts says.
In pursuing this initiative, Dr. John Bailey ('74), Dean of the BYU-Hawaii School of Education, explains teacher education is basically divided into three parts: "Preparation courses in teaching; Observation and Participation (O&P), where our students go out into the schools for several days a week; and 16 weeks of fulltime student teaching."
Bailey adds that to qualify for a teaching license in the U.S., each state can be like a different country: "Each has different licensing requirements. You have to graduate from a teacher education program, and meet whatever the local requirements are. So, preparing teachers here for the mainland is like preparing them for 50 different countries. It seemed to us if we wanted to increase our international student participation and prepare them to teach in their home countries, that having the student teaching done in their home countries would be the way to go."
He says the School of Education is currently pursuing two scenarios so international education majors can spend their last year in country: partnering with a private individual there to supervise the student teachers, or partnering with a local university.
For example, Chingching "Jean" Yau ('04), a physical education major who did her O&P in Hawaii, returned to Hong Kong and was the first student from there to do her student teaching back home, under the supervision of a local professor.
"At the completion of student teaching last year, she presented her transcript to the Ministry of Manpower and Education to be licensed as a teacher. They checked out a couple of things and approved her application," Bailey says. "Now she's a licensed teacher in Hong Kong, her degree is considered a bachelor's degree with honors, and she's working as a Department of Education trainer in physical education for PE teachers in the schools in Hong Kong. In this situation we didn't have any agreement with the Hong Kong Institute of Education, but it worked out very well."
Yau agrees. "I am grateful for the chance to do my student teaching in Hong Kong. I think it helped me to understand more how the school system works there and what the expectations of a teacher in Hong Kong are. They are very different from the States."
As an example of the other scenario, Bailey says the School of Education has a partnership with the National Teachers College (NTC) in Manila, Philippines, where BYU-Hawaii graduate Maribel Menor ('06) was enrolled for the last semester of her senior year. "When she completed that this past February, we transferred those credits back here and she graduated from BYU-Hawaii. I kept in touch with her through email," he says, adding the arrangement worked well.
Menor agrees. "The experience was great," she recently emailed Bailey. "I taught almost every day the whole semester. I was prepared well enough and I received really good feedback each time," she says, adding she has been hired to teach in the NTC Lab School which, Bailey notes, "only selects model classroom teachers, since they help in the training of pre-service NTC teachers. Her English skills also played a big part in this hire, along with her ability as a teacher."
Of the two scenarios, Bailey says he prefers the private supervision approach, such as the one Yau pursued. "That's the simplest way." But he recognizes that Menor's 3+1 approach also has benefits, and in some cases is the only way an international student can become a certified teacher.
"In Korea potential teachers have to pass a national exam, but in order to take it they have to graduate from a Korean university. In that situation, we're going to need a 3+1 or a post-graduate arrangement with an institution there."
"I like the direction we're moving," Bailey continues. "It makes sense for the School of Education to be working along these lines. To me, that's the heart of this institution. This gets our students back in their own countries as licensed teachers, where they're an asset because they're good people and well trained."
He says there's another benefit: The first round of BYU-Hawaii students who participated have created lots of goodwill. "In the state of Hawaii, they already tell us our graduates are the best. Now we're starting to hear that from our target areas. Mary Gibson ('05), for example, completed her student teaching in American Samoa. She did such a good job and was so well thought of that they asked her to participate as a staff member in the UH summer school program there."
"Our students have higher standards, so they're appreciated because of the good people they are and the good skills they've acquired," says Bailey. "They're well equipped, and we find locally they tend to be given leadership roles early."
"When our students go out of here, they should have an international focus," he adds. "I was an international student here, and for me, the thing that I valued so much was that BYU-Hawaii made me feel like a citizen of the world, not just my own country."
'Infinitely more flexible'
Asked how he sees these programs developing in the next several years, Dr. Keith Roberts says, "I think these agreements are going to help strengthen the schools in those countries. They're win-win, because we don't have to invest in unique professional schools in those countries. We provide a very solid arts and sciences foundation that gives our students the preparation to succeed."
"Our students will be better prepared than people who have only gotten degrees in those countries," he continues. "They will not only have the professional preparation, they will also have an American degree, the spiritual preparation and the English language proficiency, which is becoming more important in all of the countries."
"We only get involved in agreements that, first of all, we can complete, that will be of benefit to our students, and will be of benefit to the Church in the long run."
"In the future, if somebody wants to be a physician, dentist, attorney, teacher or businessman, they can come to BYU-Hawaii and get a foundation that will prepare them to be successful in those careers in those countries. These agreements allow us to be infinitely more flexible than if we tried to do this all on our own."