The Trump administration is moving to cancel visas for foreign students at Harvard. It is also halting visa processing at American embassies worldwide. Because of this, the United States is retreating from its legacy of global educational exchange. These actions sever the intellectual lifeblood of American higher education. They also betray the spirit of cooperation that once flourished in projects like the Global Thinking Project (GTP).
At a time when global crises—from pandemics to climate change—demand collaboration, we are witnessing a dangerous turn inward.
Mikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union. During his tenure as leader of the Soviet Union, I was engaged with American and Soviet colleagues in a project known as the Global Thinking Project. From 1981 – 2001, hundreds of Americans and Soviets (later Russians) collaborated with each other, lived in each others homes in the Soviet Union and in the northern and coastal areas of the Georgia (USA). They attended each others schools, research institutes and universities. They participated in one of the first Internet collaborations between not only Americans and Russians, by educators and students in Australia, Czech Republic, Spain, and other countries.
In 1945, Albert Einstein said after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, everything has changed except our modes of thinking. And still our modes of thinking have not changed.
During the years of Trump, global collaboration was diminished to a whimper. Banning people from Muslim nations and making it difficult for people from other countries to secure visas removed the power of citizens interacting with each other in a framework of trust...
