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Today the Fulbright Programme is familiar
worldwide as a unique means of fostering
cultural and educational exchange between the
United States and other nations. The Fulbright
agreement between the United States and New
Zealand governments was signed in
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Fulbright in New Zealand Joan Druett has drawn on the reminiscences of more than 600 past alumni to write this fascinating and lively account. The book outlines the history of the United States/ New Zealand programme and allows American and New Zealand Fulbrighters to speak for themselves, recounting their experiences, both humorous and serious, in one another's countries.
Fulbright in New Zealand is a special book
about a special subject. It will be read with
pleasure and interest not just by those involved
in the Fulbright Programme but by all who
believe that better international understanding
can mean a more united world.
Cover Photo: Looking at Mt Cook from Lake
Matheson Road. (Communicate New Zealand)
Joan Druett, who was born and raised in New Zealand, is a graduate of Victoria College of the University of New Zealand and Christchurch Teacher's College. She has lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including North and South Aumerica, Europe, the Middle East, mainland China and South-East Asia. Her husband Ron, an Englishman, is a souvenir of one of these jaunts. They live in Hamilton, New Zealand, and have two sons.
Joan gave up teaching in Exotic Intruders, her account of the
acclimatisation of plants and animals in New
Zealand (Heinemann,
In Petticoat Whalers, the full-length
account of the whaling women, which utilises
this extensive material. Her novel
Abigail, will
be published simultaneously in New York,
London and Aukland at the end of Photo: Rod Wright.
ISBN 0 473 00602 2
In
The purpose was dual:
The Report on the Fulbright Survey (
A book which has as its subject a programme of such goodwill must, in the research and writing processes, rely on the goodwill of others.
Firstly, I must thank Eric Budge and Laurie Cox, the two Executive Directors of the Foundation in New Zealand, for their constant helpfulness, courtesy and patience. The book could not have been written without the time and attention they gave so unstintingly. I also must thank past and present secretaries: Doreen Galbraith, Jane Rice and Carolyn Douglas.
I also owe gratitude to the staff of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research who were so knowledgeable and pleasant during the huge task of sorting out the questionnaires as they arrived and then in the collation of the subjective material that provided so much of this account. Geraldine McDonald, Pam Kennedy, Barb Bishop and Ellen Meiklejohn were also unfailingly helpful and forthcoming with the objective material which forms the bulk of their survey. Then I must also thank the members of the Board, particularly Frank Corner, Baron von Kohorn, Bill Renwick and Geraldine McDonald, who made time to see me, read three drafts and gave much helpful advice and comment.
Then there were those who communicated what the Fulbright philosophy means to their concept of New Zealand as it is now: Judith Fyfe, Brendan Smyth, James Mack, Ken Keith, Jim Traue, Jock Phillips and Maurice Cave in Wellington, and David Mitchell, Bruce Dixon, Mary Gordon and John Jensen in Hamilton. Bob Clark took the time to see me during a busy visit from Auckland. I also must thank those who took time to write: Earl Dennis, Connie Hall, Sonia Gernes, E. P. Y. Simpson, Gwynneth Hall, Marie Dulihanty and Sandra Myres.
I must also thank, deeply and sincerely, the 662 past alumni who filled in the questionnaire and sent it back, along with anecdotes, clippings, articles, reminiscences, comments, photographs, jokes, letters and even poetry. This book could not have been written without them.
Joan Druett
February 1988
"
Ididn't come to New Zealand because I was too happy. I came because of a dim sense that things had gone wrong. I was a little bored, a little restless, my writing often stalled, my thoughts muffled by small failures, small disappointments, attempts at love that failed . . . I wanted to view life through other eyes, to become aware of those assumptions that are the unseen cause of most of our failures, each of us as sure of our rightness as we are sure that June is the realm of summer days, and that birds fly south to escape the winter storm.Learning to see again is a subtle thing, I've found. It's the fact that vegetables have different names and fruits I've never seen before fall from the trees in profusion (feijoa, tamarillo, pepino) ... It's the Maori novels I've been reading in which tradition is more important than progress. It's hiking in a jungle that is snakeless and cold and learning that camellias are a 'winter flower'. . . .
It is late September as I write this, and spring is what I'm spying on. There is a blush of flowers everywhere - magnolias, iris, rhododendrons higher than the house. This is no longer an anomaly I've come to accept the daffodils of August, the falling leaves of May. When letters from South Bend drift into my mailbox on paper thin as froth I think of you all there on the other side of sunrise, waking on a day that for me is already past. I think of the fire that is beginning to ignite those little maples near the campus post office and of the bushes that will soon flame along St Mary's Lake. I remember that next autumn I too will be walking down the long avenue of oaks, that russet-gold will be the right colour for October as it has always been. But I hope there will be a twinge of strangeness in it all."
Sonia Gernes , Fulbright lecturer,1986
"Education is a slow-moving but powerful force. It may not be fast enough or strong enough to save us from catastrophe, but it is the strongest force available."
Senator J. William Fulbright
Prominent among the activities designed to foster international understanding and mutual goodwill is the Fulbright Programme, officially known as Public Law 584 of the 79th United States Congress. The Fulbright Act,
named after Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, who sponsored it
through Congress, was signed by President Truman on
"Looking back, the educational exchange programme seems inevitable. Certainly, it crystallised hopes and needs, and was a response to pressures, widely felt as World War II ended. There was a passionate hope among all peoples that greater knowledge and understanding of one another could help assure peace. There was, too, a hunger among scientists and scholars to renew communications almost totally destroyed by war. Further, for Americans and perhaps for others, the war had ended a long period of isolationism, and the desire was strong to bring into their lives and classrooms knowledge of the countries and peoples overseas."
'International Foreign Exchange', Board of Foreign Scholarships,1966
This new act was a trend-breaker in many ways,
significantly different from previous overseas
scholarships. Firstly, it put the exchange of teachers and
scholars on a truly international basis. Secondly, larger
funds were available than for any earlier programme. The act
also initiated a programme that was definitely a two-way
exchange, providing grants for study in the United States as
well as for Americans to study abroad. It was truly bilateral
— or
Another unique requirement of the act was that the programme,
although administered by the government, was under the supervision of a
Board of Foreign Scholarships, consisting of distinguished men and women
appointed by the President from the academic and cultural world, as well as
the government agencies immediately concerned. This Board was so
designed to give assurance in the
The initial meetings of the Board in 1947 and 1948 shaped other basic principles which now characterise the programme. One of the most significant was that it would rely heavily on private co-operation. Further, it was agreed that exchange grants would be awarded to teachers, professors, research scholars and students on merit alone: there would be no means tests. That merit was to be judged not only on academic or professional standing, but also on the applicant's ability to be an ambassador for his or her country. The goal of increasing mutual understanding was to be considered as important as that of furthering individual scholarship.
Both in the
The agreement between the
John S. Service, First Secretary at the United States Embassy in Wellington, was the first Acting Chairman, and he, with Armistead Lee, who was then Second Secretary, did most of the work for the United States Embassy on the early negotiations. Armistead Lee did a lot of the legwork and his New Zealand secretary, Gwynneth Hall, drafted many of the communications to Washington on these negotiations.
Then, in
"The first, unofficial but extremely effective acting Executive Secretary of the Educational Foundation was my USIS secretary, Marie Luom. For some six or seven months after my arrival in New Zealand ... Marie and I were the Foundation staff. It took some time for the New Zealand Department of Education to give up Eric Budge, and in the meantime Marie and I had a tremendous amount of work to do to prepare for the arrival of the first contingent of American students, professors and research scholars who would be hoving into sight in time to begin the academic year beginning
March 1950 .Housing in Wellington was very difficult at that time and to assist this invasion of American academics was a real challenge. How great we did not know until later. My wife, daughter and I came to New Zealand on very short notice from the United States Department of State.... We therefore came without our household effects and depended on renting furnished quarters of persons who had ‘gone home’ for the year, or who for other reasons rented their homes temporarily. As it turned out we lived in five houses and two hotels during the two and a half years we lived in Wellington. I developed a real antipathy for the Shaw Savill liner
Dominion Monarch(a beautiful ship) because as I sat in my office in the Government Life Insurance Building and watched theDominion Monarchcruising slowly towardsthe pier it probably had my landlord on it returning from his six month trip ‘home’ and I knew we would have to move again."
In mid-
The men and women who served on the Boards of the various Foundations
were all distinguished in various fields. Each Foundation has a
separate executive agreement with the
Here, from Earl Dennis, are the names of the first members of the Foundation Board ‘to the best of my knowledge and Ralph Vogel's recorder’:
"Honorary Chairman, Ambassador Robert E. Scotten
Temporary Chairman, John S. Service, First Secretary, American Embassy
Henry Miller, Wellington Representative of Firestone Tire and Rubber
Company
Armistead Lee, Second Secretary, American Embassy
Osborne Watson, Commercial Attache, American Embassy
Clark Fahling, Wellington Representative of Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Company
Sir David Smith, Retired Supreme Court Justice and Chancellor of the
University of New Zealand
The negotiations had stressed that New Zealand should have a material role in the setting up of the bi-national Foundation, but, as Earl Dennis recalled,
"It took the calm, influential and judicial voice of Sir David Smith to put on the record that this was, indeed, a bi-national programme. For example: The selection agency in the US had recommended an American research
scholar (a professor of entomology at the University of Hawaii ) for a research grant in New Zealand to do research on a rather obscure and not terribly important family of insects (the Psyllidae). In the Board discussions as to the Foundation's decision to award the professor a grant, a New Zealand member asked, ‘What possible value could research of this type be to New Zealand?’After everybody else had his say Sir David made the clinching statement, and established the principle then, and henceforth, that the Fulbright exchange is a
bi-nationalprogramme. It ran something like this:‘Gentlemen, it is my feeling that if the recommending agency in the US has seen fit to recommend Professor X for this grant, who are we to judge the value of his research on the basis of our country alone?’ Professor X was awarded the grant. This is only one example of many, when Sir David's wise and judicial mind laid down some fundamental principles which governed future operations of the foundation programme."
Along with Sir David Smith, the other two initial New Zealand directors of
the Foundation Board were
"
Major-General Sir Howard Kippenberger was, I understand, appointed as one of the three initial directors of the Foundation Board on the basis that as the Foundation owed its origins to World War II it was appropriate to include one of the country's most distinguished soldiers of the war and one who, as Editor-in-Chief of the War Histories Board of the Internal Affairs Department, was still concerned with the effects of the conflict. Sir Howard had practised as a solicitor in Rangiora between the wars. He took a keen interest in the Foundation's activities and perhaps because of his legal training his observations were always to the point. He remained on the Board until his death in1957 when he was replaced by Air-Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Nevill.The other initial New Zealand member, Frank Callaghan, was permanent head of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. His background was in botany but he had acquired a wide knowledge in many scientific fields and was very helpful in assessing the relatively large number of applications in those fields, especially in the early years.
The DSIR put forward proposals to have US research scholars and its officers from time to time applied for awards to go to the
United States , but he was quite neutral when this happened and let the facts speak for themselves. He remained on the Board and its Screening Committee until1969 ."
The selection of candidates for exchange grants was the result of several
screening processes. In the
American teachers, lecturers and research scholars were selected in a similar way, except that no campus or state committees were involved. For teachers, the Office of Education, not the Institute of International Education, was involved as the preliminary screening committee, and for lecturers and scholars, the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils.
The selection of New Zealand grantees, in effect, reversed the processes. The Foundation in New Zealand was the first screening committee. It sent its recommendations to the appropriate contract agency (the Institute of International Education, or the Office of Education or the Conference Board) and to the Board of Foreign Scholarships. The Board made all the final selections and awarded the grants.
Eric Budge described the early days of Fulbright in New Zealand:
"The American students all received a maintenance allowance as a single person, payment of tuition fees, and reimbursement up to a certain amount for incidental expenses plus a travel allowance for field projects.
Applications were selected by the Institute of International Education in New York as the State Department's agent. The Foundation had the final say but in practice we accepted all those we could place with confidence and graduate status at one of the university colleges or occasionally elsewhere. Research scholars were in the programme from the outset. I believe we were the first to feature them, with programmes sent to the State Department listing perhaps three or four openings at university colleges for one or two awards as lecturers and perhaps twenty openings for five or six awards as research scholars.
If approved by the State Department, which usually happened, they would be sent to the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils in Washington, which would advertise them and send the papers of the best applicants back to the Department to be sent on to us for our choice.
Most of the Foundations settled for visiting lecturers to help out with their problems in getting good quality staff at their universities. In time some would learn that the Fulbright programme was not able to and would not want to induce good quality staff to go to indifferent institutions.
We had the problem of the different academic year. The majority of the Fulbright Foundations are in the Northern Hemisphere and New Zealand would have been the first in the Southern Hemisphere.
It did not occur to the State Department in Washington that New Zealand might have a different academic year and the
1949 batch of US graduate students were sent down in September. That is, except for Lois Brean, astudent from Maine who had been in touch with Victoria University College in Wellington and insisted that as classes would begin in March she would arrive there late in February 1950 . Earl Dennis commented that people from Maine were always very precise. She lost out, however, as the other students had their awards extended with a virtual holiday until March.The students both ways soon adjusted, but it was not so simple especially for American senior people thinking of coming as university lecturers. For them March was an odd time to start and they would usually have to be back at their home institution by early September, whereas the New Zealand institution would want them to stay until October or perhaps November. However, this problem was solved to a large extent, incidentally.
It was a requirement that senior grantees be based at an approved university institution. But the Colleges of the University of New Zealand were mostly teaching institutions with only a handful of staff engaged in research which earned recognition outside New Zealand. On the other hand, scientists of world rank were asking the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils in Washington about the possibility of coming to research laboratories under the control of the
New Zealand Government 's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Agriculture. The leading laboratories were the Grasslands Division of the DSIR headed by Dr Bruce Levy who was probably the world leader in his field; the Ruakura Animal Research Station headed by Dr McMeekan, who, among other things, had built up a herd of identical twin calves which provided untold research opportunities, and the Wallaceville Animal Research Station where Dr Cunningham was also a world figure.When Frank Callaghan heard about these individual approaches he suggested that the Foundation state a case. The State Department accepted the arguments and the three research laboratories were approved as were other laboratories when the occasion arose.
I doubt whether the significance of this approval was recognised at the time, but it had most beneficial effects in several ways.
In the first place, the grantees coming to the laboratories could forget about the New Zealand academic year, so timing a visit became so much simpler. Secondly, it soon became obvious that the offer of a research award with the prospect of publishing papers of consequence was much more attractive than a lecturing appointment. This meant that the university colleges could, in many fields, not only overcome the problem of the different academic year, but also get better applicants by asking for research scholars rather than lecturers. And thirdly, as things developed, the US grantees, whether at research laboratories or at university colleges, of their own accord and with the Foundation's encouragement, saw most of the New Zealanders in their fields throughout the country. And they were normally very willing to give occasional lectures in those areas in which they had special knowledge. A condition of considerable mutual ignorance gradually changed to a state of considerable mutual respect.
Initially I was quite unenthusiastic about science grantees hobnobbing
together in their labs. This seemed to have little to offer in terms of Fulbright goodwill, compared with sending a visiting lecturer who would probably associate with hundreds. I was seldom wrong in my judgement, then, but I certainly was, in this case. They were mostly quietly spoken people, some a little shy, but of considerable stature well beyond excellence in their field, and somehow one felt better for having met them. Reports from their host institutions were most complimentary, always, not only about their research work but also about the way in which they had fitted in socially with others at work and the area in which they lived. When I visited the institutions and asked people about them, their eyes softened as they replied.
I have told the State Department officers at conferences that these research scholars never put a foot wrong as Fulbright grantees.
There were too many to mention but a typical one was Professor Merton Love who came from the University of
California at Davis, perhaps the leading Agricultural College in theUnited States . He was one of five grantees brought down to give papers at the Sixth International Grasslands Conference held inPalmerston North , in1956 . He was based for his nine month stay at Lincoln College, where he became a kind of benevolent godfather. Scientists there and on the Soil Conservation Council had been agitating fruitlessly for years for a high country research station. His enthusiastic report resulted in the birth of a Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute. Its name and functions have changed in the course of time, but its activities are now controlled by Professor O'Connor, a New Zealand Fulbright scholar from Lincoln who took his PhD at Davis.Professor Love was a Rotarian and so had a double duty to go out and meet people. He must have spoken to hundreds.
I referred to Professor Love as a typical grantee. He was one of a procession of senior grantees from Davis, which would have sent more than any other university in the
United States , all of them in a field related to farming. Farming was then very much the life blood of the community, and agricultural scientists from around the world wanted to be at Grasslands, Ruakura, Wallaceville, Soil Bureau, Massey University College and Lincoln College. Grassland specialists, soil scientists, foresters, biologists, microbiologists, entomologists, parasitologists, veterinarians, etc. came as Fulbright grantees and most gave at least as much as they got. The gain to New Zealand is not measurable but it must have been considerable.The Foundation's firm policy of offering awards in our strongest fields had full support from sponsoring institutions though it did run counter to the State Department's desire for an even spread throughout all fields. And some of the American members of the Board wanted grantees to be brought down in areas where New Zealand was well behind. We soon found out that good grantees are seldom interested in areas of weakness. However the scholars who came were certainly not confined to the pastoral and agricultural field. Lecturers and research scholars in fields outside agriculture and other sciences included accountancy, adult education,
American history, architecture, criminology, dentistry, economics, education, engineering, geography, German, home science, law, library science, literature, mathematics, medicine, physical education and religion. The Conference Board of Associated Research Councils assessed the academic standing of the grantees accepted by the various Foundations. This Foundation was listed in the top bracket. This meant that the grantees coming to New Zealand were regularly rated as highly as those going to Great Britain."
It is difficult now to imagine a time when ‘Fulbright’ was not yet a household
word, yet, as Doreen Galbraith, Personal Assistant to the Executive
Secretary/Executive Director from
"In those early days we worked under very trying conditions attached to the American Embassy — lack of office space and a terrific amount of paper work, so different now — and the pressure was terrific and there was always the mad rush to catch the Pouch to the State Department. However, it was all rather exciting; they were very happy days in those early years before the Embassy moved off to The Terrace and we were left high and dry in Government Life on our own."
And what about those first American Fulbrighters? How did they feel about coming to New Zealand — and how did the New Zealanders they met feel about them?
It was a surprise, perhaps, to find that many Americans thought that New
Zealand had a kind of mystique. Fulbright researcher James McEnteer
wrote of this attitude in an article titled ‘The Playing Fields of Eden’, published
in the
New Zealand Listener of
"Tourists aside, the Americans who fall under the spell of Kiwi magic and feel compelled to visit New Zealand are of three basic types: the gold diggers, the space travellers and the utopians ...
The gold-digging tradition is the oldest of the three. By
1797 the Yanks, as sealers and whalers, had arrived in force. As theOxford Historyrelates, it
was an American sealer, O. F. Smith, who ‘discovered’ Foveaux Strait in1804 . By1839 about 80 American deep sea whaling ships plied New Zealand waters. Americans established businesses ashore too; men likeWilliam Webster , who ran a large-scale timber milling operation in the Coromandel in the 1830s....Gold diggers are a prosaic and predictable lot compared to the American space travellers.... Yankee space travellers characteristically have only the vaguest notion of how or what or even where New Zealand really is. But it is precisely this lack of information which attracts them here; space travellers seek adventures in the Great Unknown."
If an American in
‘New Zealanders may be the most hospitable people in the world,’ wrote
one American. New Zealanders were also perhaps the most obsessed with
watching and taking part in sport. They were fanciers of horse-flesh, too,
and seemed oddly willing to hand over their hard-earned cash to a strange
institution, the totalisator. They also played a totally mystifying game called
cricket, and gave up countless hours of sleep to follow the progress of their
teams on radio. It was a land of milk tokens, Aunt Daisy and two kinds of
radio, of roll-your-own smokes and athletes who advertised alcohol and
tobacco. New Zealanders were royalty-watchers, too — and those Americans
who were here in
And then there was the 40-hour week. At that time it dominated conversations — and lives. Shopping had to be done on overcrowded Friday nights instead of on leisurely Saturday mornings. Instead of supermarkets and drugstores there were crowds of little dairies, groceries and butchers' stores, and even the labels were written in a different kind of English. Of all the problems, however, transportation was perhaps the worst. Many Americans found they had to buy a car, and the problem was how to afford one.
Cars in New Zealand at that time were unexpectedly expensive. Those
who wanted new cars had to produce overseas funds as a proportion of the
Wives and families had to make adjustments as well. They found a world of kindergartens at the age of three, school at five, free milk and apples at ‘morning teatime’, school dental nurses, broadcasts to schools, school uniforms, single-sex schools in the cities, and accrediting for University Entrance. ‘Pounds, shillings and pence,’ wrote one Fulbrighter, ‘remained a mystery to the end.’
"Then there were the male adjustments: pub crawls and smoko, even
when the job in hand was urgent. One Fulbrighter described the ‘six o'clock
swill’ as ‘an exciting and impressive custom’. Then there were the holidays,
camping and beaches at Christmas. Fred Addicott, a
"The best booking that we had been able to get turned out to be a thoroughly saturated square of turf on which we then struggled to set up the modest tent lent by Day's Bay friends. By the time the tent was up and reasonably secure we were cold, wet and not in the most cheerful of moods. As we gathered inside to consider how we might arrange ourselves for a night on the soggy grass, a camp neighbour appeared at the doorway and said, ‘Here, I thought you might be able to use this.’"
‘This’ turned out to be a glowing portable kerosene stove. Other campers gave the family hot drinks and dried their wet sleeping bags. ‘Thirty years later,’ Fred Addicott writes, ‘the memory of that visit and those thoughtful and helpful South Islanders is still warm in our hearts.’
"It is my impression," said
1953 Fulbright scholar Kling Anderson, "that New Zealanders and Americans have much in common. They believe in the same things and are striving for the same major attainments. Differences in our ways of life are mostly limited to the relatively unimportant, minor, things, and are overwhelmed by the similarities. Each nation can contribute much to the knowledge and culture of the other, and, therefore, emphasis on such exchanges as these Fulbright Scholarships needs to continue or even increase to strengthen the bonds of understanding between us."
Howard Critchfield was in New Zealand in
"With John S. Service acting as temporary chairman of the Foundation, one American grantee, Olaus Murie, a distinguished American naturalist and high-ranking officer of the Wilderness Society, had already been awarded an Education Foundation grant and had already arrived in New Zealand before I arrived. He was investigating the population of American elk (wapiti: 20 of this species had been donated to the Government of New Zealand by President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt in
1909 ). This population was released in the Sounds area of theSouth Island and Murie was already there, with a small party of New Zealand wildlife experts. Murie was active in the environment movement in the US and many of his opponents here considered him pretty far left, politically. This was seized upon by certain elements in New Zealand (who had their own Communist problemwith Messrs Barnes and Hill of the Longshoremen's Union). They dubbed Murie a Communist, which was echoed by the rising pro-McCarthy faction in Washington and between the two factions gave the Foundation in Wellington and the Department of State here a hard time, for a while. It blew over. Murie was certainly not a Communist and was not in the South Island to capture and take home with him a few pairs of Notornis — a supposedly extinct species of bird which had just been discovered alive and well in the South Island . The anti-Murie group in New Zealand had gone so far as to accuse him with that intent."
If Dr Murie was aware of this controversy, he did not seem to let it affect his project here, or stop him from talking to as many New Zealanders as he could. Fiordland is perhaps the wettest piece of real estate in the temperate world; it also has the unenviable record of 48 gales per annum. ‘More rain and nasty weather than I could have anticipated anywhere in the world,’ he told reporters. His team companions were, he said, ‘a great bunch of people.’ His wife, too, spoke to the media, in the Fulbright tradition that was only just starting, and gave a talk on radio.
Geologists, too, were happy to experience New Zealand landscape and
weather. Coming here did a geologist's record no harm at all, for New
Zealand geomorphology is famous — 'There is no way I could ignore that
scenery in my profession,' wrote one — and Professor Cotton at Victoria
University College had a world-class reputation. One American geologist,
Charles Rich, came for a nine-month grant and stayed on for four and a half
years. Then, in
‘My graduate students,’ reminisced
"
Icame from a white, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon monoculture. Working, living and playing in a multi-cultural mixed society was a big change. However, one thing is sure — there are as many societies and cultures in the USA as there are grains of sand on a shore. I met only a few ...New Zealand speech was too fast, pitched too high and had too much alien slang for easy comprehension. Acquiring an American accent was a necessary self-defence. Between three months when novelty had worn off and 12 months when one was accepted into the community was the most difficult. Thoughtful criticism was usually supported, and no offence was taken. Compared to my companions I was very short of money; however everyone made allowances and was exceedingly generous ...
Food, clothes, theatre, sports, travel, homes, the superb college facilities compared to New Zealand, the change of seasons, fall colours, dogwood trees in spring, computers (I visited Penn. State's huge basement computer bank — one of the first), politics — it was McCarthy communist hunting, Nixon's first controversial TV ‘apology’."
Helen Hughes , Fulbright graduate student,1952
"The Fulbright programme is an antidote to stereotyping; it removes our national blinkers."
L. Maurice Cave , Fulbright graduate student,1955
"The more opportunities for cultural exchanges the better for the mental health of the world. Touristing provides only a superficial picture of a country. One needs to live in a community for a time to really gain an understanding of a country and its people."
W. David Barney , Fulbright researcher,1962
"As a young adult this award made me more sensitive to my own society. It has allowed me to move easily between the two countries throughout a whole career, to teach, hold office, publish and consult as readily in the
United States ofAmerica as in New Zealand."Dame Marie Clay , Fulbright graduate student,1951
"This experience was a watershed in my life, personally and professionally. It set me in new directions and was influential in providing me with a very satisfying career."
Dame Jean Herbison , Fulbright graduate student,1961
"At the start, my expectations were limited and not clearly defined due to lack of knowledge of what might be possible. After a short time in the States, from my study, research project work at the clinic, and contact with eminent people in the field, I became more aware of what was possible. I was fully extended intellectually for the first time."
Olive Chapman-Taylor , Fulbright graduate student,1954
The programme was first publicised in the New Zealand University
Calendar of
The following paragraph made it very clear that the award was purely a
travel grant and could be given only to an applicant who anticipated
‘securing a Scholarship in an American university or of otherwise arranging
for his support while in the
This, in fact, is what happened. The hopeful scholar or student applied to
the Foundation for advice, and Eric Budge obliged. The system worked
very well indeed. In the years up to
"Advising students was quite a task at first. The University of New Zealand at that time set out in its calendar the overseas institutions, graduates of which would be granted ad eundem status automatically. For the United States there were four: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia. I saw nothing incongruous in this at the time.
The Embassy's collection of US university catalogues and publications listing institutions were available to me and before long were located in my office.
Initially most of the applicants were students in engineering and science. And although those with personal defects were excluded, it was taken for granted that in the university atmosphere they would be going to, those with high scholastic ability would fit in best.
They were mostly first class honours material and seemed to have little
difficulty in getting scholarships. There may have been a few but I can't remember any that we selected failing to get a scholarship or a teaching assistantship which suited those who had an academic career in mind. I told them that institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology or California Institute of Technology received applications from all over the US and
Europe and elsewhere so it would be wise to apply also to a few others. One student who had received the offer of a worthwhile scholarship from all ten to which he had applied, asked for help in the elimination process.Virtually all of our early students did very well and this had fortunate results in various ways. I had no doubt that their professors would be very willing to have New Zealanders so I referred later grantees to them. And they would doubtless be writing back to their own student friends, and in due course those planning an academic career returned to their New Zealand institutions to teach.
There were broader advantages also.
The predominance of student applicants in science and engineering probably related to the fact that instruction and research in some fields in these areas necessitated extremely heavy expenditure in equipment which few countries outside the US could undertake.
As for other fields, it is necessary to remember that New Zealand got its educational background mainly from England, with some elements from Scotland. In
1949 probably most of the senior academic staff at the colleges of the University of New Zealand were British-born graduates of British universities or New Zealanders who had done post-graduate study inBritain .When their most promising students asked for advice about advanced study overseas they would naturally suggest Oxford or
Cambridge or one of a few other British universities rather than US universities, of which most had little knowledge.However once the programme began with New Zealanders going to US universities and Americans coming from them, it became much easier for would-be applicants to get reliable worthwhile information, in most cases for themselves or else from grantees whose names and addresses were supplied by the Foundation.
Within a few years good quality applicants covered most fields.
While the scientists of the DSIR and the Department of Agriculture were eagerly welcoming the first US grantees, from whatever university they came, some senior university administrators needed convincing about applicants who had no connection with Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Columbia. However the policy of offering awards in areas in which we were strong made it easier to select first class candidates, and before long it was accepted that a Fulbright award almost guaranteed a successful visitor.
This reluctance now seems ludicrous. In
1949 the University of New Zealand was awarding a handful of degrees at PhD level, while US universities were awarding about 6400. Most states of the US had at least one university,and some had several, which covered all fields of learning to a level at least as good as anything in New Zealand — and there were a few as good as anywhere in the world, including Great Britain. The young accepted this more easily than those of us who were older, and before long we were getting strong applicants in virtually all fields. Previously, no encouragement had ever been given to give grants to applicants wanting to study a European language. The view was that French students should go to
France , and so on.Early in
1963 the State Department sent a letter to the Foundation to the effect that it was supporting the Seventh International Conference on Modern Languages and Literature, to be held in New York in August and if suitable applicants were available it would try to arrange for a semester's teaching for them at one of the universities. The Foundation nominated Dr Paul Hoffman, an Austrian born lecturer in German at the Victoria University of Wellington, for whom the State Department secured a semester at the University of Illinois, Urbana. Dr Hoffman expressed considerable interest in visiting German universities coming or going and was told that he could visit both ways if he could get extra leave and paid for any extra fare. After a very successful time at Urbana (he was offered a permanent post) he brought in his final report which stated that the teaching of German at Urbana was far superior to anything he had seen on his visits toGermany .He was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of German at Victoria while he was at Urbana and a little later he expressed a wish to have a US Fulbrighter in his department.
The question of recognition of US qualifications came up when US graduate students expressed a wish to take a New Zealand degree, usually a Master's but in some cases a PhD. As few qualified under the Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia criteria their cases had to be considered on their merits. I was asked to evaluate the particular university at first, but it was decided before long that Fulbrighters would be accepted unless there was some good reason to the contrary."
Alison Hanham, a Fulbright teacher in
"Applying for the Fulbright Travel Grant was daunting. Getting a visa was even worse. We had to be fingerprinted, solemnly swear not to overthrow the government of the
United States by force or live by prostitution (what a hope!) and attest that we did not approve of Communism. There was a space on the form for one's police record, which was filled by a stamped ambiguous statement ‘police report not available’. A life-size negative of a chest x-ray had to travel with us and was on no account to be folded or creased. My fellow-passenger, Pauline Murphy, and I pinned them up on our cabin wall and were disgusted when finally a US customs officer threw the precious nuisances into a trash can with barely a glance."
In those early years most Fulbrighters, both Americans and New
One of those who flew to the
‘You might be interested to know,’ she wrote, ‘that there was a dressing
room for women in the tail of the plane, with toilet and, I think, shower,
banquette seating, a large mirror and vanity stool.’ The female passengers
repaired there before going to bed, changing into nightdress and dressing
gown before sidling down the curtained corridor to their berths. ‘In the
morning as I sat brushing out my plaited hair I was amazed to see it all rise in
Another New Zealander to fly was Margaret Ranald, who went in
By whichever means the New Zealanders arrived, they found that taking
up a day-to-day existence in the
The American people were an equal eye-opener. Because her Fulbright travel grant allowed her to travel in a better class than she could have afforded herself, Alison Hanham met a steel millionaire on a train. When he heard her story he dug in his billfold and beamingly presented her with a 20 dollar bill. ‘I fully expected him to be a white-slaver,’ she confessed. ‘But he was just a generous American.’
‘Americans are foreigners,’ wrote one New Zealander, ‘who happen to speak English,’ but other New Zealanders would have debated that statement. Margaret Ranald was informed when she enrolled at UCLA that she would have to take an English proficiency test, because she was a foreign student — ‘With considerable difficulty I convinced officialdom that my native language was indeed English.’
One New Zealander, Bruce Ferrand, found out for the first time that ‘I had an accent’. It was dangerous, furthermore, for Americans and New Zealanders to assume that they shared the same vocabulary, when such words as ‘fortnight’ (two weeks) are unknown in the States. ‘Streetcar’ and ‘elevator’ held hazards, too, and grown men were apt to bridle if the ‘hood’ of their ‘automobile’ (car) was called a ‘bonnet’. ‘Cheerio’ was guaranteed to send the audience into fits of disbelieving hilarity. Even an effort to buy a ball of string was doomed — ‘String?’ one American was reported as saying, ‘Man, it's twine.’
When Kenneth Cumberland was lecturing at the University of Wisconsin
in
These hiccups in conversation were matched by other misconceptions. Alison Hanham found that she always seemed to be explaining that, ‘firstly, New Zealand was not under despotic British rule, secondly that New Zealand Maoris were not confined to the hills, and, thirdly, that an enlightened Social Security system did not mean that our government was rabidly Communist.’
American ignorance of the whereabouts of New Zealand also led to some
strange and wonderful conversations. Mrs John Small stepped out into a
street with a jaunty beret on her head, and was asked by an interested
onlooker, ‘Do you come from
‘No,’ she said.
‘From Germany, then?’
‘No.’
‘Italy?’
‘No. I come from New Zealand.’
‘New Zealand? Ah, I knew you were over from that way somewhere!’ and her questioner departed, looking complacent.
And Roderick Bieleski, a
"At that time, my only experience of ‘overseas’ was
Australia , and of the USA was what one saw in the movies. Two weeks after I began working in my newLos Angeles laboratory, I was still goggle-eyed at being in the Centre of the film industry, living next to film-stars (this was1960 , remember, when that meant something). This particular morning, I was the only soul in the laboratory. I vaguely wondered why, but kept at work — no one had thought to tell me that the laboratory had been loaned for the day to a film crew. Well, of course when the camera dolly, the sound equipment, the lights and the director's chair were wheeled into the laboratory, I was damned if I was going to look like the country boy. This was Hollywood, right? You had to expect this, right? So I carried on doing things with flasks and beakers as if no one was there. I was jerked out of this unreactive state when I saw a couple of the gophers headed towards my collection of carefully-collected, carefully-washed glassware. ‘Can I help you?’ Yes, they wanted various bits of scientific-looking and photogenic glassware, so I led them to the wash-up sink and let them select from the dirty stuff. But my shield of isolation had been broken. Back they came. ‘Can you help us get a this? And a that?’ Certainly I could: I knew that was what an authentic Angeleno would do. But then things got a bit more complex. Did I know ofsome solutions that would look scientific? After some discussion, and me showing them a few options, they decided that their needs were nicely served by the dramatic colour change which occurred when you tipped alkali into a bromophenol-blue-containing acid solution and stirred briskly. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. I'm not sure whether it was my rugged New Zealand features, or the freshly washed lab coat supplied by my wife that day, but when the Director said, ‘Fine, fine, fine’ it turned out he meant that he was not only satisfied with the visual impact created by my chemical magic, he was also impressed by my skill and panache in doing it. He didn't just want the chemicals, he wanted me. Would I, could I? I was damned if I was going to behave like a country boy. This was the movie capital of the world. It happened here every day. Stars were born every day. With an off-handed, manly, Kiwi shrug I said ‘Yup’, just like Coop. The lights were turned on, the cameras ground, I stirred photogenically, the solution changed colour (I didn't have to speak) and a satisfied Director let me retreat (slightly shell-shocked but not showing it) to my desk. Suddenly there was a flurry. ‘Migod, we've forgotten the release.’ Over came a very long document which, in a welter of fine print, assured the world that one Roderick L. Bieleski would have no claim whatsoever of any kind on the makers of the film, a very well known organisation. So died a career. But how many Fulbrighters, I wonder, have appeared in a publicity film, made by the US army, demonstrating the many fine opportunities available when you take a career with Uncle Sam?"
For New Zealanders, the American experience held as many humorous pitfalls as the New Zealand experience did for Americans, but there were other problems which had a much more serious impact.
Some New Zealanders found it hard to adjust to racial and social inequalities.
Racial problems could be upsetting. In
It could be a challenge, also, to adjust from life in a quiet south
The New Zealand Fulbrighters, despite their diffidence, were inevitably
involved. John Watson, who was in the
Donald Wilson went to study in
The Director sat Wilson down and said, ‘Do you carry a cosh?’
‘Why, no! I guess I never thought of it.’
‘Many people do, here,’ the Director said. In fact, he added, some carried
swordsticks. Going out alone at night could prove most unwise. All times of
He did, however, have one experience that was as positive as this one was negative, when he was invited to a holiday camp for overseas guests. ‘During the evening,’ he wrote, ‘I found myself seated on a sofa in front of a large fire.’ A Scots girl sat on one side of him, and a Japanese man on the other. It was impossible not to remember the stories of World War II and feel very uncomfortable about it.
Then, after a very long silence, Wilson decided to tell the Japanese how
he felt. The Japanese agreed that he did not feel all that happy, either.
‘Soon we admitted to each other than we had fought against one another
during the war, and then discovered that we had been in the same place at
the same time — on opposite sides.’ The two men became firm friends, and
they were sorry to say goodbye when the Japanese returned to
Whatever the occasional problems, the rewards of Fulbright tenure were
very great, and they included professional rewards, after scholars returned
to New Zealand. The Reverend E. A. Johnson, who became Archbishop of
New Zealand, says ‘my subsequent position in the Church was largely due to
the American experience and the qualifications I gained.’ Helen Hughes,
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, attributes her very
successful career directly to the Fulbright travel award which allowed her to
study at Vassar in
An example of the way in which New Zealand was affected by the Fulbright
can be found in the unlikely field of law. Anyone who watches television
drama must be aware that the court scenes in British or American
programmes are very different. Nevertheless R. O. McGechan, the Dean of
the Faculty of Law at Victoria, was granted a Fulbright in
This flow of ideas continues today. In
With this example, changes have happened as a direct result of a Fulbright grant or grants, but this is not always so. While it is logical that exposure to a foreign methodology will change the course of events, it is equally logical that the Fulbright Foundation cannot take sole credit, if only on the grounds that money had to come from other sources to finance a New Zealand Fulbrighter to the States in those first 20 years.
It must be remembered that the Fulbright then gave travel money only, although American Fulbrighters who came to New Zealand did get a stipend, in New Zealand currency, as Eric Budge explained:
"This was a maintenance allowance adequate enough to allow a grantee to live comfortably in New Zealand without being ostentatious. There was some feeling, including Embassy people and US grantees, that loud-mouth American tourists with too much money were a poor advertisement for the US.
As it was a maintenance allowance, the grant for lecturers, research
scholars and exchange teachers varied according to the number of dependants brought with them. There was also an allowance for reasonable travel relating to their project and students' fees were paid for them."
New Zealand Fulbrighters, however, had to find other sources of income, as described earlier in this chapter, and this help was often considerable, outweighing by far the fare money given by the Foundation. Because of this it was difficult to separate the effects of the award from the benefits of the scholarship that had paid a living allowance. ‘The New Zealand Fulbright was only a drop in the bucket,’ wrote one scholar. Others felt that the Fulbright gave prestige (‘It looks good on one's Curriculum Vitae’) but averred that they would have gone to the States anyway, though it was handy to have the fares paid.
The main disadvantage, for many of the New Zealanders, was the stipulation
that they return home and work here for at least two years. It was a
condition of accepting a Fulbright, but some thought the penalty out of
proportion to the money received. The Foundation, over the years, has had
to field some criticism in this respect — although this is unfair, since the
restriction was a condition of receiving a
Many of the Fulbrighters who agreed to the condition misjudged how
hampering it would be later on, for their Fulbright experience had changed
them, too. They became accustomed to the challenge of working in
This was certainly not part of the Fulbright philosophy; as one American remarked, ‘The Fulbright programme is not meant to finance emigration.’ So, while the New Zealand Fulbrighters who did come back found that their experience had helped their career, ‘for anyone who returns from working overseas is respected and encouraged’, many others were forced to break the terms of their contract, either through personal inclination or because of their careers. Many of those who came back left again as soon as the two-year requirement was satisfied. As one of them put it, they could not cope ‘with the small town parochialism’ of this country.
Meantime, Eric Budge and his secretary Doreen Galbraith were working away at the continuing development of the Educational Foundation in New Zealand, helped by the Public Affairs Officer at the United States Embassy.
"I've never found out why some things happened [said Eric Budge] but I expect it was due to a feeling that using a foreigner was pretty risky. Earl Dennis was there to establish the programme. Though he was clearly
American, he had Irish charm, and from a public relations point of view, bearing in mind the association with the universities and scientific organisations, he was an excellent choice as a front man. When he left the Ambassador promoted the second in command to be Public Affairs Officer and Chairman of the Foundation Board.
Don Wilson was a newspaper man. He told me that his knowledge of education in the US was mostly limited to his own experience and that he knew even less about education in New Zealand, so he would have to depend entirely on me for everything related to the Fulbright programme.
And for the rest of my term, the Public Affairs Officer was never an educator and when there was an Assistant PAO he was not especially qualified in this area either. Evidently Wellington and Washington came to the conclusion that a foreigner could safely be left to run the programme without endangering American interests."
New Zealand Fulbrighter Roderick Bieleski paid tribute to Eric Budge, who did so much for the scheme in this country:
"One of the things that gave the Fulbright (in New Zealand) its special flavour was Eric Budge's attitude towards his Fellows. They were his family. He would get the old fellows together, once a year, to meet the new fellows; and I particularly remember the meetings in the old Grand Hotel in Princes Street, opposite today's Hyatt. His ‘piece de resistance’ always left the new chums weak at the knees. At some point in the proceedings, when things were really going well, with old friends and new acquaintances yabbering away indiscriminately nineteen to the dozen, he would clap his hands loudly and get everyone to settle in a ring. He would then go round the room, individual by individual, introducing each to the room, without any notes or any prompting. Spouses were introduced as well (though how would he go in today's de facto environment, I wonder?) and there were two-sentence potted biographies of what each had done and where each had been. It was not just an enormous feat of memory, extended as it was over more than a hundred people: it gave each humble Fulbrighter an idea of the true scope of a very fine scheme. Eric Budge was special."
"
Idid not have any clear set of expectations, rather a jumbled array of ideas and impressions, and an eagerness to become involved in as many ways as I could. Consequently I arrived armed with a wide range of educational resources, posters, pamphlets and booklets about New Zealand and New Zealand education. These, supplemented by the curriculum copies and syllabus outlines I brought, the numerous sets of slides depicting aspects of my school in New Zealand, various slides on outdoor education and camping, and the set of filmstrips, Maori tapes, booklets, blown-up photographs, and pre-recorded tapes of New Zealand children singing and speaking, provided me with a formidable arsenal with which to bombard American teachers and students about New Zealand and New Zealand educational patterns. I was also fortunate in enlisting the support of the New Zealand Embassy in Washington, DC, and the consulate in New York into supplying me with numerous posters, plastic souvenirs and tourist pamphlets about New Zealand. I was ready and prepared to launch an all- attack!"
Bill Barrett , Fulbright exchange teacher,1978
"I have no doubt that the opportunity to teach in the
United States not only significantly broadened my general teaching experience, but enhanced my professional competence in a way that first made me a better teacher and second, earned me special recognition within the New Zealand educational system."
Sir Wallace Rowling , Fulbright exchange teacher,1955
Former Prime Minister Sir Wallace Rowling, who has twice been an ambassador for New Zealand — once as a Fulbright exchange teacher and the second time in an official capacity — is convinced that ‘the professional group with the most potential to produce a positive impact from exchange opportunities are teachers’. He has several reasons for his belief.
Firstly, teachers work with young people, who are receptive to new ideas.
Secondly, teachers work with new groups of young people every year, so
that the passed-on benefits of the Fulbright experience are almost endless.
Teachers, furthermore, are trained both to observe and report accurately
on what they see. Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, teachers have a
It was logical that the Foundation should involve itself in some kind of
teacher and educational development exchange; the word ‘educational’, is,
after all, in the Foundation's name. The three New Zealand teachers in the
Mary Beard was a Fulbright exchange teacher in
"My exchange was probably ideal as my exchangee taught in my classroom in New Zealand and lived with my family. She became a very much loved member and a very close contact was kept with her until her death in
1986 .I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had to visit the USA under the scheme. It added immensely to my teaching experience and my international understanding. It opened up so many new horizons. I hope I was able to pass some of this on to my pupils in New Zealand. I'm sure that my US students still remember much about New Zealand. Some students became very interested in New Zealand rugby and developed their own version of the game!"
The Education Boards, which appoint teachers in New Zealand, appear to have preferred direct exchanges; it made things much easier in a time of teacher shortage. On the other hand, however, the heads and school committees often seemed reluctant to risk an exchange teacher, and preferred to ask instead for a long-term reliever for the year that the New Zealand teacher was away. There were times, as Eric Budge commented, when organising a direct exchange was difficult:
"It never bothered me that New Zealand teachers might have to spend a year in a mere village with few attractions. After all, New Zealand was a small place and many of us had grown up in villages. Moreover teachers who wanted any sort of promotion had to do a period of country service. On the other hand, I wouldn't have been able to agree to an arrangement that would have subjected a US teacher to spending a year, say, in Fordell, near
Wanganui where I grew up among three or four hundred people. The arrangement would be too much a matter of luck and chance.As things turned out, many of the US teachers were small town people who were shy and took time to get to know people. Some of these elected to stay in the same district for the whole period. But a formal all-over switch to direct exchanges was not really viable because, firstly, local education authorities in both countries would be most reluctant to accept direct exchanges of headmasters, and secondly, we couldn't have justified a
system whereby the recommended New Zealanders must come from a school in a town of reasonable size. Another problem was that the Department of State and the
United States Office of Education had no control over school systems which were controlled theoretically by each State, but practically at a local level. This meant that if exchanges were to be arranged they would have to start at the beginning of the US school year in September.So the New Zealand teachers, who were usually more experienced and who expected to gain professionally and so were well motivated, arrived usually to have a week's orientation with the other teachers before the pupils arrived. The US teachers arrived here for the third term and usually were expected to teach as closely as possible to the pattern of the departed New Zealand teacher at least for the rest of the year.
Although the top New Zealand teachers were heads of city schools there were always large numbers of progressive young teachers as heads of two
and three teacher schools who were very suitable for consideration as exchange teachers. The major disadvantage of this was that the American teachers tended to be less experienced, and yet the New Zealanders virtually always took the American teacher's job. The reverse was so only with high school teachers or when we had sent forward the papers of a specialist, say, in remedial reading — something we seldom tried because it was not likely that a match would be made. However, there were worse problems. Some of those who were not measuring up in their own locality, especially in their social relations, may have decided that life would be simpler in a country like New Zealand where the pace was slower. It didn't work. The teachers were subject to the school principal and if they were not measuring up to the parents' expectations something had to be done about it."
There were, of course, many exceptions to this, but New Zealand teachers who took up a direct exchange found their own problems in the States. Accommodation was one of them. In many cases there was a straight swap of houses — and cars, even — along with the exchange of timetable, school duties and responsibilities, but one New Zealand who found himself in the predicament of finding no house at the end of his journey was John Dennison, who exchanged with a teacher from Springfield, Massachusetts. His opposite number did not have a property, but the problem was solved when Dennison and his family were invited to appear on television.
The host of the show asked Dennison what he needed most. John replied, ‘A house of our own,’ just before his two sons got their teeth stuck on two large 'gob-stoppers' that had been given them, all on camera.
Next day a woman phoned the Dennisons. She had seen the programme, had been amused and thought she had something interesting to suggest. Perhaps, she said, the family would like to come out and chat. She had a house, a delightful house, fully furnished, and she needed a house-sitter for a year. ‘Her daughter and son-in-law became some of our best friends,’ John said, ‘whom we have visited and had stay with us in New Zealand, and whom we write to regularly.’
Other exchange teachers had similar positive experiences, but there
were
problems. The overriding concern was the failure of grants to provide any
real professional development for the participating teachers. Jack Cox, for
instance, believed that ‘the award greatly enhanced [his] personal and
professional skills, understanding and attitudes’ and he appreciated the
Americans' ‘high sense of idealism’, but he also wished he could have
observed more schools. Some New Zealanders, who were lucky enough to
go to schools that had a tradition of hosting exchange teachers, were
allowed to both learn and contribute ideas. Others, however, perceived a
certain impersonality in their treatment. It would have been easier, says
one, if the host school had taken more interest, or had even sent a guideline
of what they expected of him.
It was all a matter of luck and administration. It came as a surprise to many
As with so much else about the
Not surprisingly, several New Zealanders found the staff of the schools
where they taught jaded and cynical and the staff and students apathetic'.
An American who came to New Zealand and was met at
There were other problems, too. Biology teachers found it a challenge to do fieldwork when the classroom was 3200 kilometres away from the sea and there was a blanket of snow outside. Others were faced with pupils whose natural language was Spanish or Hebrew. Some found problems ‘adjusting to the acceptance of inferior academic standards by the students qualifying for graduation.’
‘When I went in
Another teacher, when visiting a school, asked the principal what he
considered his greatest problem. The official replied, ‘Well, they sometimes
drop too much litter in the halls.’ The New Zealander received this answer
with some silent envy, but half an hour later the school was in an uproar.
Some of the students had bombed the cafeteria with tear gas — ‘The principal
Diane Thomsen (Barton), a Fulbright teacher in
New Zealand hospitality, as more than one American Fulbrighter has
said, is famous, and this enhanced the teaching exchanges for many Americans.
The welcome was usually warm to the point of being disconcerting.
One American, reminiscing about his first night in a Wellington hotel,
noted his and his wife's surprise in the early morning when a ‘cuppa and
one of them would be there next night! It was a fitting start, he
said, to a memorable year. But for the requirement to return to his
American school, he would have stayed in New Zealand. As it was, when he
did get back to the States he became so disillusioned with his home system
that he left teaching altogether.
John Windle and his family were met in
There were other surprises for the American teachers who came here. One found it difficult to adjust to seeing pupils arrive barefoot in summer. The arrival of two ‘relocatable’ classrooms was even more surprising. And, of course, there were problems of idiom and accent: ‘A dainty little girl age eight began to tell me and the class about what fun she had dressing pigs. Her mother showed her how, she said. I was amazed! She talked at length and the class listened politely but without any surprise. Finally I asked her to print the word on the board and she wrote PEGS (clothespins).’
Many of the American teachers enjoyed the outdoor life and the opportunities
for outdoor education. It was easy, one remarked, for ‘New
There were also various adjustments to be made in classroom work. Dr
Foster Grossnickle, who came in
When Desmond Bodley returned from his Californian teacher exchange tenure he felt so revitalised that he set about establishing an Educational Travel Programme for teachers' college trainees at Auckland Teachers' College. Another teacher wrote that his Fulbright exchange was ‘probably the most stimulating year of my whole 40 years in the teaching profession’.
Eric D. Mann, who was an exchange teacher in
"The intellectual and professional expansion I experienced was without doubt the single most significant event in all my professional and personal development. The effect was to ‘colour’ the rest of my career. The focus was the notion of ‘guidance’ or as it is better known today, ‘counselling’, to the extent that I was virtually to pioneer this in New Zealand secondary education."
Despite the lists of exchange teaching successes, however, there were
perhaps too many disappointments. Wilbur J. Switzer, who came to New
Zealand to teach geography in
This was a time of grave staff shortages in New Zealand, and many busy heads could not spare the time from adjusting class numbers and timetabling to pay extra attention to visiting Americans. The decision by the board to phase out the teacher exchanges was probably inevitable. Once the basis of funding was changed, and New Zealanders could be paid United States dollar grants, Teacher Educational Development Grants seemed much more sensible.
In
There had been too little positive feedback from the scheme. The Fulbright
teacher exchange programme continues to operate in many
countries, but in New Zealand it was replaced with an enlarged Educational
Development Programme. The last teacher exchange under the Fulbright
programme in New Zealand was between Henry Ngapo and John Windle in
The Educational Development programme, by contract, was eminently
successful. The purpose of these awards was to provide the opportunity for
experienced members of the education service to observe developments in
the
"But the general idea was to have teachers who had completed their professional training at a Teachers' College plus a few years' experience and who were young enough to absorb new ideas from what they would see in the US.
The Board agreed with my suggestion that the one or two awards we could afford should be offered to the
Education Department to select from their top professional officers such as the Chief Inspector of Primary Schools, the Chief Inspector of Secondary Schools and colleagues in line for promotion to these positions.I knew from past experience that few if any of these people had ever been overseas officially except perhaps to
Fiji orAustralia . On the other hand most of the top officers in DSIR or the Department of Agriculture who were receiving US research scholars had themselves been to the US or Great Britain.On my visits to Washington the State Department and Office of Education people made it very clear that the New Zealanders were easily the best. They came from the cream of New Zealand teachers, they were skilful in quickly assessing what they saw — as was said about one of them, ‘he quickly separated the wheat from the chaff’ — and they were in an excellent position to introduce the fresh ideas they gained from their visits into New Zealand schools.
The State Department and the United States Office of Education arranged for the visitors who all came at the same time to elect a Group Chairman and it was usually one of the New Zealanders.
Their grants were combined Fulbright-Smith-Mundt awards with a maintenance allowance and full travel expenses paid by the State Department.
The only criticism I received was that we should be sending more. One was the best testimonial I have ever read about anybody. It ended, ‘If you ever have anybody like him again please send him with or without notice’."
Bryan Pinder held a Teacher Education Grant from
"My itinerary took me to: the
Chicago area and Champagne-Urbana, Illinois; Denver and Greely in Colorado; Salt Lake City and Roosevelt in Utah; Sacramento, theSan Francisco area, theLos Angeles area and theSan Diego area, in California ; Las Vegas in Nevada; the Grand Canyon, Albuquerque and El Paso in New Mexico; Austin, San Antonio and Houston in Texas; New Orleans in Louisiana; Nashville in Tennessee; St Louis in Missouri; Cincinnati in Ohio; Williamsburg in Virginia; City of New York; the Boston area in Massachusetts;Albany , Syracuse, Buffalo in the State of New York; Detroit and Dearborn in Michigan (after a weekend in Toronto);Pittsburg in Pennsylvania; and Atlantic City.My purpose in visiting educational institutions through the country was to seek light on numbers of educational problems I am concerned with in New Zealand....
Number of schools visited — 150
Number of universities, state colleges and private colleges visited — 21 Number of school districts visited — 40 Number of state board of education offices visited — 5 Number of country offices visited — 6 Number of private schools visited — 8 Number of classrooms visited (approx.) — 600-900 ...My only regret was that, in some places, the tightness of my official schedule prevented me from getting to know some of the people I met as well as I would have wished; I would not have had it otherwise, however, as it was the very tightness of my schedule that gave me the opportunity to delve deeply into so many aspects of American education while at the same time leaving me free to explore cities and towns and make contact with a wide range of people.
... I tried to make the most of my opportunities and I never dreamed that I would have such a stimulating and intellectually and emotionally satisfying time."
Other educationalists had equally busy and impressive grants, and there
were also the various research grants in education fields. It is difficult, of
course, to say categorically that education in New Zealand has changed
because of these various research and observation grants, but there is
plenty of evidence that there were some profound effects. Marcus Riske,
who went to the University of Illinois as a visiting lecturer in
Other educationalists brought back methodologies and materials for
teaching social sciences, an important move, for the social sciences are very
strong in the States. Others brought back research techniques — in the
analysis of teacher-pupil relations, in the process of learning to read. Brian
Sutton-Smith, who had a research grant in
It was a two-way process. Ned Flanders, who came to New Zealand in
The word ‘education’ in the title of the Foundation is all-important. The
Educational Development Grant is a special category, but the process of
education is studied by other categories of Fulbright awards as well, in the
interests of the future of the education processes in New Zealand. David
Mitchell, a American Studies International,
Winter
"I came to
America because I wanted to meet and work with some of the researchers investigating infant development in theUnited States . I came, too, because I wanted to see howAmerica 's enlightened policy on special education was being implemented across the country.The professional significance of my visit can be summed up in one word: stimulation. Having listened to several dozen excellent researchers working in the field of infant development, I have been able to clarify the directions my own research will take when I return to New Zealand. I should also be able to carry out comparative studies with researchers at the Educational Testing Service, my host institution during the tenure of my Fulbright award."
"
The situation between the US and New Zealand is asymmetrical. Very few Americans have much of an opinion about the Kiwis and New Zealand, before going there. The country's natural beauty and the people's friendliness create a favourable impression. Most New Zealand academic types coming to the US already have pre-formed, strong and often unfavourable opinions about the US which are changed very little by our personal friendliness."Ed Williams , Fulbright graduate student1951 and United States Consul-General atAuckland ,1975-78
"It all happened twenty-five years ago, but I still frequently think of it. It meant a lot to a flatland farm kid who had seen little of the world."
Lee Clayton , Fulbright graduate student,1962
As the exchange programme grew, it became increasingly obvious that
more money would have to be found from somewhere. The money from
the sale of war-surplus goods was being used up fast. For instance, in
Then, in
The Board also ensured the fair and impartial selection of grantees.
There was no means test; candidates were chosen entirely on the basis of
promise and merit. The Board had pledged at its first meeting in
Because of this, the Board looked for resourcefulness and adaptability, along with all the other requirements — but how much adaptability did the average American Fulbrighter need, when she or he came to New Zealand?
Suzanne Snively came to New Zealand in
Sharon L. Smith, a
"At first I was dismayed (understatement) because I was ‘exiled’ from
Auckland where I thought I would be living, to this marine laboratory on a sheep farm where I had to join in the community efforts at cooking (which I had not done before), grocery shopping and so forth. The laboratory had very spartan accommodation, no clothes-washing machine, no dryer, no television, and a telephone that had to be cranked up to work! I could not have imagined living like this if I had been forewarned, and mercifully one has life's great adventures without warning. Surviving and learning to enjoy a simplified life has become like a gift I brought back from New Zealand. I have continued to be a non-consumer, and have thrived on those lessons in the ‘basics’ . . . So the Fulbright experience changed my personal life in quite fundamental ways and showed me that the many things I took for granted in theUnited States as necessary to living were not so."
Perhaps many of the problems that the Americans encountered when they
first arrived were exacerbated by the fact that New Zealand and the United
States are similar in so many ways. The American historian, Frank Parsons,
had written in
When the American Fulbrighters first arrived, they came as spectators. While it could be very annoying to be asked within the first few days what one thought of the country, the opinion given was likely to be more valid then than it would be for some months to come, for so many got caught up in a kind of ‘honeymoon’, where New Zealand looked almost ‘cute’. Originally the Fulbrighters arrived in groups, and Eric Budge could meet them, but as time went by it became quite impracticable for him to greet them all. Accordingly, he relied on their hosts to introduce them to New Zealand.
‘I spent my first five hours in New Zealand,’ one recalled, ‘hunting for milk bottles so I could buy some milk.’ Others found the A and B buttons of public telephone boxes an annoying mystery. The main problem often, however, particularly if the Fulbrighter arrived in winter, was that no matter how often and carefully warned, no American seemed to believe warnings that New Zealand in winter is cold. Earl Dennis agreed:
"Very few homes or other facilities which we secured for our first year's grantees had central heat. Nearly all our Americans reported that they loved the country, liked very much the people they worked and studied with, and were very happy with their college or university affiliation, but all reported they were cold. One American research scholar and his wife invited my wife and I to their quarters (which we had secured for them) and he spent a great deal of time and energy after dinner placing a thermometer in different locations in the living and dining rooms, and then showing the thermometer to us in turn, to prove how much they were suffering!"
‘Information on the climate was essential as the American grantees, especially the teachers, seemed to know little or nothing about physical geography,’ said Eric Budge. ‘If I had to go to the northern hemisphere I'd automatically accept the fact that as far as climate was concerned it would be the opposite time of the year. When I explained this to a US grantee about to come to New Zealand during one of my visits to the US he said, "You mean that while we're having winter you're having summer? What a cute idea!"’
Te Karere, the booklet of information that the Foundation put out for
Americans coming to New Zealand, made much mention of the weather
here. ‘While a few hardy souls have advised us that we worry unnecessarily
in giving warning about the New Zealand climate,’ it began, 'the majority of
grantees who have commented have INDICATED THAT WE DO NOT
STRESS SUFFICIENTLY THE FACT THAT IT IS COLD HERE.’ Too
many Americans, the writer (Eric Budge) noted, held the completely erroneous
belief that New Zealand has a sub-tropical climate. The cold weather
here is humid — ‘In other words, there is a damp cold that penetrates.’ He
urged the reader ‘to give full consideration to it. New Zealanders combat
the cold indoors by wearing warm clothing and
particularly warm underclothing.’
This was good advice indeed. One American wrote gratefully of that wonderful New Zealand ‘invention’, the ‘singlet’. ‘We learned very quickly that New Zealand houses have no central heat,’ John Windle noted. There were exactly two ‘comfort zones’ in the house where the Windle family lived: ‘a space with a radius of about two metres in front of the fireplace, and under the covers in bed. Anywhere else was no-man's land and we spent as little time there as possible. Answering the phone was a major trauma because the phone was in the hall. As the hall was ice-cold, so was the phone, and our ears hurt whenever we had to put the phone up to them. The second most traumatic spot in the house was the toilet seat.’ The school room, however, had a wood-burning stove — and John Windle snuggled up to it so blissfully that he set his ski jacket on fire.
Another American reported that the highlight of his Fulbright tenure was the day in Wellington when the sun came out. Transportation, however, was often as big an adjustment as the weather. Cars in New Zealand were still much more expensive than they were in the States, and New Zealand driving habits could prove distressing. ‘The people are great,’ one American wrote, ‘until they get behind the wheel of a car.’ New Zealand, wrote another, ‘is a country with miles of surprisingly good roads built over and through the most difficult terrain, a country of very expensive cars and many ancient ones, a country with a tragically high traffic death rate.’
Despite it all, though, the Americans who came were enthusiastic travellers.
They explored New Zealand from Cape Reinga to Bluff, and from East
Coast to West, and even found that it is right and proper to talk of ‘the’ South
Island and ‘the’ North, but never ‘the’ Stewart Island. They drove, hitch-hiked,
The opportunities to explore New Zealand were of course augmented if the Fulbrighter was able to conduct any fieldwork. One American was greatly surprised by the amount of ‘fieldwork’ that he was assigned, until he realised that his director had organised it so he could see the country. When Lee Clayton was doing fieldwork in the Southern Alps he lived at a Ministry of Works camp, and the foreman's wife cooked him his evening dinners. She tried out a procession of New Zealand delicacies on him, something Lee appreciated — until the night she gave him tripe: 'Luckily she had plenty of dry bread to force it down with.' Aarne Vesilind was disconcerted to discover that the fish in fish and chips was often shark (lemon fish), but he had developed such an appetite for the treat by this time that he decided to ignore the fact and enjoy the fish and chips just the same.
Aarne Vesilind came to the
In many ways Aarne typified the ebullient attitude of so many American Fulbrighters who are ‘in tune’ with the new environment. The ‘in tune’ phrase is apt: Aarne Vesilind played cornet in the Hamilton Citizens' Band. He also learned how to play cricket, and departed proud of his score of 28 not out in his final match.
Lincoln College, like
The study was collaborative throughout, involving the Department of
Horticulture, Landscape and Parks at Lincoln, the Department of Lands
Those Americans who 'did' the tracks such as the Milford or the Heaphy
usually rated these as highlights of their stays, and some became concerned
for the preservation of New Zealand forests. One who admired ‘the
magnificent New Zealand countryside’ wished that ‘New Zealanders them
selves had more concern with maintaining it.’ As a ‘mountaineer, fisherman,
amateur geologist and outdoorsman’,
Max Carman, who came to New Zealand in
Carman was working on Lake McKerrow, and staying in a fishing but at Martin's Bay. ‘My friend, Alex, told me the story of the little girl of the Jamestown colony who reported seeing "a huge chicken with legs like a Roman soldier". The speculation of the legend is that she may have seen one of the last surviving moas. Presumably she had seen pictures of Roman soldiers in school books and remembered their leg guards, which bear a similarity to the conformation of moa legs.’
Martin's Bay in
"I observed that I'd pray I could get my camera out fast enough and be calm enough to get a credible picture, but Alex exclaimed, 'I wouldn't bother with my camera, I'd shoot it!' This was shocking, but he explained to me that no one would believe a photo because it could be faked; but a fresh carcass could not be denied.
I've many times since pondered Alex's drive to prove he had seen the creature, and the value to science of having a dead recent specimen, versus the ethics of killing what might be the last living example of this exotic species or the hope that there might be a barely viable community of moas living in some remote valley, of which the bird we saw was a member essential to its reproductive survival. How would one know that it was truly ‘the last living moa’?"
In some cases, the American Fulbrighters' desire and ability to merge with the myths and resources of New Zealand led to further problems. It was inevitable that the visitors should make some comment about this country they were observing so enthusiastically, and perhaps inevitable, too, that they should become involved in New Zealand-led discussions of American foreign and domestic policies, past and present.
In the article, ‘The Playing Fields of Eden’, mentioned in Chapter One, the author James McEnteer described three kinds of Americans who came/ come to New Zealand: 'the gold-diggers, the space travellers and the utopians'.
"New Zealand first acquired cult status as paradise on Earth for a significant number of American intellectuals and politicians during the progressive movement in the
United States , from the late 1890s until World War I. . . .The progressive movement arose in the
United States as a reaction to the social inequities of the Industrial Revolution. The wealth of the few and the oppression of the many obliged would-be reformers to find models of a more just society to emulate. The reformers found their shining example in New Zealand.Thanks to Liberal legislation enacted between
1891 and 1911 , New Zealand's green islands appeared to American progressives like the playing fields of Eden. New Zealand had given women the vote, subsidised farmers and provided them with low-interest loans, awarded old age pensions, forced employers to provide decent working conditions, imposed compulsory arbitration on labour disputes and introduced progressive taxes on land and income, among many other farsighted measures."
McEnteer then goes on to comment that ‘for American progressives New
Zealand had more attractions than Disneyland’. There was praise indeed, at
Many of these post-war observers were Fulbrighters, and many of them
felt the need to comment. ‘New Zealand is a delightful country partly
because it is less frantic than the
The liberal legislation that had been so much admired earlier in the century got a great deal of the blame. The 40-hour week gave rise to much comment. ‘The limited shopping hours on evenings and weekends took a surprising amount of getting used to,’ wrote one scholar, who added that he had been ‘trapped’ at home for two weekends of his stay here because he had forgotten to fill the gas tank of his car on the Friday.
New Zealand, wrote another, is ‘a country where the government plays a major role in business and agriculture, a country where the government provides "cradle to the grave" security for all its citizens with the result that it probably removes some of the incentive to work, a country which has made me more conscious than I was before of the virtues and the dangers of the "not to worry" and "it'll come right" philosophy.’
It was probably impossible for any American Fulbrighter here to avoid
making a comment. Many New Zealanders who studied in the
New Zealanders, by contrast, get angry. 'New Zealanders do not like to be
criticised,' wrote Robin Winks. He was one of the two American Fulbrighters
who published books detailing their expectations, impressions
and criticisms of New Zealand as they saw it in that first decade. 'Is it possible
to love something without respecting it?' Winks enquired. In his book
These New Zealanders he then proceeded to list the characteristics of the New
Zealand people that did not merit esteem. His penultimate remark, that ‘I
demonstrated my love for the people — because I married one of them’
might, as an excuse for the written criticism, raise a few eyebrows among
feminists and logicians alike, but Winks, like the other Fulbright author,
"In his book
The Fern and the Tiki(1960 ) Ausubel pointed out ‘the apparent paradox of an advanced welfare state co-existing with an essentially mid-Victorian social ideology’. He found the women oppressed, the schools authoritarian and conformity rampant, despite a contentious atmosphere. What he appeared to despise above all was the air of smug self-satisfaction among the natives, 'holier than thou attitudes ... This superiority extends to all important matters — morals, ethics, education, intellectual attainment, public taste, good manners, tolerance, family life and the deportment of children . . .' Whatever validity Ausubel's cultural observations possess is undermined by the shrill belligerence of his tone as he sets about his work to destroy the myth of New Zealand as heaven on earth."
The words ‘shrill belligerence’ are probably very well chosen. While Winks'
book is certainly much less far-reaching and precise, it has a ‘cosy’ tone that
sweetens the pill of criticism. Both men touched on the drunken behaviour
and preoccupation with sport of the 'typical' New Zealand male, and both
remarked on the adverse social aspects of the social welfare system, but
Ausubel aroused much more ire, perhaps because so many of his readers
and reviewers perceived the same quality of 'smug self-satisfaction' in his
writing that he assigned to the New Zealand people. W. L. Renwick
reviewed
The Fern and the Tiki
in
Nga Pukapuka,
1960
"Several times ... the author instructs his readers of the vast difference that often exists between ‘things as they are’ and ‘things as they are perceived’ by those who take them most for granted. His own book provides a very good illustration of this dictum.
Dr Ausubel writes about New Zealanders and the New Zealand way of life with the frozen zeal of the would-be-admirer turned iconoclast. He left the
United States disturbed at the evidence he could detect of increasing social conformity and he was, he tells us, 'eagerly looking forward in New Zealand to the heterodoxy and forthrightness of opinion that (he) automatically associated with a pioneering and liberal Welfare State' (p. 119). (Elsewhere in the book we are warned against the dangers of thinking in terms of national stereotypes.) ...The author ... set himself the task of writing ‘a treatise on the national character of the New Zealander’ (p. 220); he has attempted to disclose patterns and uniformities in our behaviour where others have seen isolated, unrelated fragments. This is an exceedingly ambitious and difficult task and, in the absence of full documentation of the hypothesis that is being advanced, it depends very largely for its effect on the quality of the mind at
work behind the personal observation and reportage. On almost every one of the first 148 pages of his book Dr Ausubel demonstrates his lack of qualification for writing such a book. Indeed, it is one of the unsolved mysteries of his work that he can write so much about the methods of scholarship and practise them so little. He scolds us for our insularity and lack of perspective, but for all his world travelling and specialist knowledge of human nature his book reveals the mind of a provincial: he is absolutely without humour and is no less assertive than the New Zealanders whose habit of making categorical statements on little or no evidence he so much deplores; and despite what he says about objectivity and fidelity to fact, the tone of his book is more characteristic of a termagant than of a scholar."
Renwick went on to say, ‘All the more pity, then, that on two subjects, the training and discipline of children and adolescents, and race-relations, Dr Ausubel touches on important matters.’ The generally carping and dogmatic tone of the book, which, in time-honoured tradition, led to bad reviews and very good sales (the book is still in print after several editions) meant that readers focused on style and aspersion instead of the more apposite statements that were made. The best that can be said is that the book inspired a great deal of debate — debate that continues today.
For much of what Dr Ausubel wrote was most perceptive, and time has
proved him right, as Roger Mackey pointed out in the
Evening Post
of 16
"Ausubel might have been an unpopular man but ... he was, as an American might say, damn right when it came to predicting New Zealand's future.
He wrote, sometime in
1959 , ‘the honeymoon of prosperously muddling through while recklessly violating every known principle of economics is over’. And, ‘. . . but over the long haul the economic crisis will progressively deepen until New Zealanders are finally willing to face up to the one inescapable reality of economic life, namely, that to stay in business one must be able to compete effectively in a competitive world market.’His prescription for change in our economy might be mistaken for an agenda of the national economic debate of the last ten years.
Ausubel was hardly less accurate in his predictions for the course of New Zealand race relations.
‘Maori-pakeha relations will gradually deteriorate until a series of minor explosions will compel the adoption of preventive remedial measures ... This situation will intensify Maori racial nationalism and eventually compel Maori leaders to dig their heads out of the sand. . . ."’
But how does this relate to the Fulbright philosophy? Most American Fulbrighters
participated energetically during their tenure in this country and
wanted to make well-meant comment. But did they have the right to do so?
Most Fulbrighters would possibly think so; as one New Zealander wrote,
It was impossible not to make comparisons, once the sense of similarity had worn off; the problem was whether to voice them or not. Many scientists stated some form of anxiety that New Zealand was technologically backward. One wrote that he had to make his own analytical laboratory —'I mean, we built it from scratch.' Others expressed puzzlement that bright and well-qualified New Zealand scientists chose to stay here. Others saw the compensations of the slower pace of New Zealand life and found, furthermore, that they accomplished more in the hassle-free environment here than they would have in the hectic pace of a research laboratory back home. As one wrote in his final report: 'During this period I have virtually completed eight papers which is as many as some of my colleagues will do in their lifetime, and I have the material for as many more to do in the next few years.'
Sharon L. Smith made a similar comment: ‘Perhaps I should add that I
came back to the
'If I were to identify the single most important professional experience in
my life, I would pick those two years of intense uninterrupted study,' said
John Dickey Jr., a
Robert Collar, a
"I think most Fulbrighters will agree that the pace of life (all aspects) in New Zealand is much slower in New Zealand than in
America . The society in general is a less stressful (competitive) one and for those Fulbrighters coming from large metropolitan areas this can be very refreshing once gotten used to. The warmth and hospitality exhibited by Kiwis is a direct reflection of this attitude that life should be fun. Foreigners, you'll agree, are generally accepted with enthusiasm almost the world round. But more so in New Zealand."
"
Today theUnited States has many very generous and very comprehensive aid programmes operating in various parts of the world. The need for these is beyond measure as is often the value. But real support for theUnited States and its people only comes from understanding and understanding needs direct experience — a hands-on situation. The Fulbright exchange programme provides just that. The other side of that particular coin is also important, i.e.United States understanding of other nations and their people. Sometimes I think that the sheer power and prestige of theUnited States makes this latter consideration even more critical. I am reminded of a quote I saw somewhere —'The test of courage is when you are few, the test of tolerance is when you are many.' The Fulbright scheme has in my view achieved extraordinary success in providing both understanding and tolerance."Sir Wallace Rowling , New Zealand Ambassador to theUnited States , from remarks made to a luncheon gathering of Fulbright selection committee chairpersons onMonday 8 September 1986
"Getting this award changed my life. It has led to many things since: a PhD, a great job, but, best of all, I feel so good about ME. I was an older woman, with children, no money and pretty insecure. You should see me now! The butterfly has emerged — and it's beautiful."
Maris O'Rourke , Fulbright graduate student1979 , and ‘woman in her own right’
"I recall being reluctant to ask the chairman of the department whether I could have leave to attend a large conference in Washington DC. But when I mentioned this problem to some colleagues they said, ‘You're in
America now — don't ask him, tell him."’Frank Evison , Fulbright lecturer,1963
Throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s New Zealanders became,
perhaps, a little less naive and wide-eyed about the scene in the United
States of
There were still the bonuses. The cultural opportunities — the art galleries, the theatres (and the ‘theaters’, which are different) and the operas — were occasions to be treasured. Supermarkets were still a novelty, in their size and comprehensiveness. American courtesy when driving was a most pleasant surprise, although learning to drive in the snow was nerve-wracking for some. One New Zealander described the trouble he had in getting insurance for his car. First of all he was told that if he'd had his family with him it would have been easier, but later the truth came out. There was a group of New Zealand airforce staff stationed at a nearby base, and their driving and drinking habits had become notorious.
Another Kiwi found that his habit of taking a daily walk was considered
eccentric. ‘Is walking an un-American activity?’ he enquired. There were
subtle differences in standards of clothing too. When one American was in
New Zealand he found out why New Zealanders wear shorts, after four days
American celebrations were a special pleasure. Being in
‘My highlight,’ wrote one American who had come to New Zealand, ‘was
my first pavlova — before I bit into it.’ New Zealand Fulbrighters and their
spouses became quite accustomed to making pavlovas. Food, after all, is one
of the differences between cultures that are fun. Geraldine McDonald, a
Fulbright researcher in
"My first [pavlova] was a flop and I ate it for breakfast, but I've mastered the art now, and have equipped myself with a bowl, an egg-beater and a spring- base pan and all the ingredients. The pavlovas have been very popular and I put kiwifruit on top. I've been making 9-egg ones so they are quite big but seem to disappear in a flash. It also provides a good conversation piece, as they say in the women's magazines."
One New Zealand couple had so many invitations to dine that in the end they were accepting invitations to breakfasts.
The small problems were many and various.
Another found a hitch when he tried to re-enter the States after a short
stop in
Nowadays credit cards can help out in monetary difficulties, but in the
1960s and 1970s credit cards were still a novelty to New Zealanders. Some
who travelled widely on Educational or Vocational Development Grants
Illness could be frightening for someone accustomed to a government
health care system. Those with comprehensive insurance were glad of it.
‘The bills were quite staggering,’ one Kiwi remembered. Another was told
by his insurance company when he got back to
Some ‘enjoyed’ quite bizarre experiences. ‘I was in the washroom of a bar
in Washington, washing my hands and minding my own business when a
smartly dressed young black came in carrying a small brown paper parcel.
He gave me a big friendly smile. Then he unwrapped the package,’ wrote
Gordon Smith, who was travelling on a Vocational Development Grant in
In
Of all the problems, however, the most frequently mentioned was loneliness. Americans were friendly and hospitable, but many of the New Zealand Fulbrighters worked so hard that they did not have time to make social contacts. Belonging to a church or service club could help a lot. (This applied to Americans in New Zealand as well. One American in Otago became so involved with his church, because of his need for companionship, that he abandoned geology and studied for the ministry instead. This, he said, was the everlasting benefit of his Fulbright grant.)
Many of the New Zealanders who answered the questionnaire sent out as
part of the preparation for this history, stated that they wished the Fulbright
organisation had done more in the way of hosting while they were in the
States. ‘The organisation tends, in my experience, to leave grantees largely
to their own devices, concerning itself largely with visa regulations and the
like,’ wrote a
It has been a matter for concern throughout the programme. It has been recognised from the very beginning that contact with the ‘ordinary’ citizens of the host country pays off best in fulfilling the aims of mutual understanding. If everyone who had been in the States went home and shared his or her insights into American culture and character, then mutual under standing must surely be furthered. The best propaganda for the United States was the personal reminiscences of the warmth of ordinary American families.
Accordingly, the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES)
has several programmes to further personal enrichment activities. Scholars
are ‘urged to consult with your faculty associates and other colleagues at the
university, preferably before departing from your home country, to
Others are encouraged to apply to give occasional lectures, and thereby spend two or three days on different campuses, through the Occasional Lecturer Programme. Financial assistance may be given for this, as well.
Others are invited to attend conferences for Fulbright scholars which are
held each year, usually in the spring, at Washington International Centre of
Meridian House International. CIES also organises ‘special events, both
professional and recreational in nature, for Fulbright scholars in four
metropolitan areas: Boston, Guide for Visiting Fulbright
Scholars points out, CIES also belongs to
the National Council for International Visitors: ‘The NCIV, of which CIES
is a member, is a federation of community organisations that assist academic
and other professional visitors from abroad to learn more about the United
States. The organisations can arrange home hospitality, sightseeing trips,
and visits with professional colleagues.’
Many of the American universities have more informal schemes, setting
up host family arrangements or orientation weekends, all of which seem to
be very successful. Alan Jamieson, who was in the States in
Those New Zealanders who were able to take spouse and/or family along were often not as lonely as those who were young and shy and single. Some of the Fulbrighters had been to the States when single, and they all remarked that going with a family group made the award different, more full of possibilities, more interesting. They were older and more confident, of course, which must have been a factor in the improved experience, but many also noted that the most significant social contacts were made through spouse or children.
Given the youth of many of the Fulbrighters, it is not surprising that so
many who embarked on their experience in a single state emerged from it
married. One wrote that he ‘applied as a single male, went as a married
man, and returned as a father’, while Angus MacIntyre, a graduate student
in
The questionnaire sent to former Fulbrighters was divided into three
broad sections. The first had the aim of establishing the quality, quantity and
value of the social contacts that the Fulbrighter made during tenure. The
final question in this section asked whether any of the friends made during
tenure became a spouse or partner. There were ‘yes’ and ‘no’ boxes to be
Many of the ‘no’ comments were most entertainingly frivolous: ‘Not for want of trying!’ was a favourite. Some gallant Americans added, ‘This is not to say there weren't some jolly attractive Kiwis!’ Another remarked, ‘Given more time, who knows what would have happened?’ There were hints of glasses of wine shared by candlelight. ‘Only one thing stands out clearly. But I wouldn't dare describe it. She wouldn't appreciate the publicity.’
Others ticked ‘no’ because they were married already. ‘Already spoused,’ wrote one, and another, ‘Already committed.’ One ungallant Kiwi boy friend was flown out to meet his girl's parents at their cost — and married one of her friends instead. However, more than 60 of the 662 Fulbrighters who responded ticked ‘yes’, indicating much romance along with the other rewards of Fulbright tenure. There is even one case of an American Fulbrighter marrying a New Zealand Fulbrighter — during tenure — which seems surprising when one considers that they should have been going in different directions.
In the days of the ‘boat people’, some met their future spouses on the ship going out or the ship coming home. Nowadays, with the speed and induced numbness of air travel, this does not happen so often. A surprising number indicated that they met their spouses in libraries. Others married fellow students; one married her professor. ‘I met my future wife a week after arriving in the States,’ wrote another, ‘and remain as infatuated with her now as I was then.’ Many of those who married during tenure cited the wedding ceremony as the highlight of their time, and some even declared that their marriages fulfilled the Fulbright aim better than the award itself.
One American Fulbrighter met his future wife on a blind date organised by a fellow American Fulbrighter — and his friend met his future wife on that date as well: ‘A rather productive evening for two bachelor Yankee Fulbrighters.’
Many scholars formed partnerships in the host country and afterwards.
Many collaborated in the writing of research papers, and others co-
authored books. A
Another space for comment on the questionnaire aroused a great deal of
interest. This was in the question that asked the age grouping of the Fulbrighter
at the time of tenure. The men and women who replied often
commented, spontaneously on what they considered the ideal age for
receiving a Fulbright award. Louis Smith, a
"The timing (of the Fulbright award) was propitious on several grounds. The year caught me mid-career. I had been at my university for almost twenty years and I had another twenty to go. I had my professorship, had written several books, gotten research grants etc., and was in the middle of a classical Levinson-style mid-life questioning if not crisis. At times I feel like I should have taken the lotusland alternative, for the intellectual turmoil, while exciting to the point of exhilaration, has just about worn me out. In an important sense the Fulbright set up the last half of my career. And that seems no mean accomplishment for any kind of intellectual programme or experience.
President Reagan, in a speech at the White House on
Most of the graduate students were in their early twenties; some said they
thought this too young. Overawed by the experience, they immersed
themselves in frantic study, and then became lonely. They were often shy.
Many commented that when they went the second time they gained much
more, though of course factors other than age were working here. In
Age also affected personal expectations of what the Fulbright award would bring. The young thought it would be the ‘open sesame’ to a brilliant career, while older scholars were more realistic.
The comments of those who had been in their thirties when they took up tenure seemed to indicate that they were happy with their age. One wrote that he ‘was ideally placed to obtain new ideas, fresh input’. Another said that, at that time of life, the award was ‘a refresher’. Yet another com mented ‘I still believe this was an excellent age to have gone — too old to be swept away by the superficial gloss, mature enough to look "underneath" — and still plenty young enough to have a wonderful time.’ ‘An excellent dis tancing from our system to give me better perspectives,’ was the verdict of one scholar who thought that, with promotion still ahead, the Fulbright benefits could be fully realised.
‘I received the award at a time when I felt I needed some new experiences
Another who had been in his fifties saw his award ‘as a reward for long and faithful service’. ‘It was a wonderful summing-up visit, at a crucial time in my work. It staved off thought of retirement for several years,’ wrote another, who added: ‘I'm now, at sixty-one, ready for another injection!’ One of the Fulbrighters who was in his sixties during tenure did not agree with him: ‘Too old to get new ideas.’
One scholar wrote, ‘Age seems irrelevant to ultimate results.’ Was he right? It is interesting, perhaps, that so many did make such spontaneous comment. There are two factors here: the value of the Fulbright to the individual in a social sense, and in terms of his or her career.
One Fulbrighter wrote that his experience ‘opened up a completely new range of possibilities and at the same time broadened my expectations of what constitutes a "good job".’ Another called it ‘a significant credential’. If this is the aim of the Fulbright scheme, then it seems logical that a scholar should be as young as possible, because the prestige of having had an award leads to better jobs and more promotion. But is this the purpose of the exchange?
Senator Fulbright and the other men and women who established the
programme in
"
While I do not wish to argue that the New Zealand model should, let alone can, be transplanted to American society, or vice versa, there are lessons to be learned both ways. As a New Zealander I have gained a great deal in my understanding of people by participating in a society in which ‘every man is an island’, one in which vibrancy, drive, competitiveness, personal achievement and creativity are so highly valued. Americans who have immersed themselves in New Zealand culture have similarly come to appreciate the security and personal acceptance offered by an egalitarian society in which ‘no man is an island’, even if they are occasionally irritated by what they perceive to be a blandness, conformity and anti-intellectualism. Would that the best of both worlds could be combined. The Fulbright programme has enabled me to do that — in consecutive if not simultaneous experience."David Mitchell , Fulbright research scholar,1982
"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country and his immediate posterity, but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn."
George Washington
The 1970s were a time of change for the Foundation in New Zealand. Until
In Auckland Star
of
to Eric Budge and spoke of the success of Fulbright in New Zealand:
"They have been graduate students, university lecturers, research scholars, and teachers. A large proportion of them have been in the sciences, but there has been a wide variety, ranging from accountants to zoologists. The age range has been from graduate students in their early twenties to eminent authorities in their 60s.
Americans or American-trained people are now on the staff of most of the departments of New Zealand universities. Before the start of the Fulbright programme there were virtually no American-trained academics here.
Earlier this month, the American Ambassador, Mr Franzheim, and Mr Laking were joint hosts at a luncheon for Mr Budge at Wellington's Hotel
Waterloo , at which Mr Budge was presented with a Distinguished Service Award from the Board of Foreign Scholarships in Washington.Another function in his honour to be attended by past and present Fulbrighters will be held in
Auckland tonight.Mr Budge was with the New Zealand Education Department before he joined the Fulbright board and his successor, Mr L. A. Cox, has also come from an education background: he was a primary school teacher and was an assistant registrar at Victoria University before his appointment."
And, the article added, ‘retirement will not be hard to fill for Mr Budge.’ Eric was one of New Zealand's keenest dahlia exhibitors — and he still grows the flowers today.
Both transitions — in the foundation's name and from Eric Budge to Laurie Cox — went smoothly; the mission was the same. The impetus of the 1970s did, however, have an effect on the direction of the programme. Until the mid-1970s the Foundation made little attempt to influence the scholarly fields of the visiting American scholars, and because of this it is difficult to assess the effect that the programme had on educational, social and cultural directions in New Zealand. There had been no attempt to enhance or inspire new directions in the development of New Zealand society, but this situation was soon to change.
In
"the context in which exchanges take place has changed greatly. The number of governments in the world has doubled and so has the number of exchange arrangements. Many other public and private agencies here and abroad support or facilitate international education. The emergence of new educational and research institutions has created new needs and opportunities. The requirements of many developing countries have become more sophisticated and complex. Americans have a heightened appreciation of how much they need to know about, and may benefit from, the learning and experience of others. Transport, communication, and print link the continents
as never before. Increasingly, man's problems, expectations and aspirations are seen to be similar and even shared. As this is so, so should a wider range of educational endeavours also become shared. Believing this and hoping for a decade of educational exchange as fruitful as the past one, the Board of Foreign Scholarships has reviewed the programmes that are its responsibility in order to make recommendations to the Department of State and to the Binational Commissions and Foundations.
1. WHO should be participants in exchange? 2. WHAT kinds of subjects, problems, and concerns should be the focus of these exchanges?
3. HOW can these exchanges be organised and administered to maximise their value?"
The document then discussed the three points in order. Under the ‘who’
category it was stated that ‘It is time ... to increase the educational
Under the ‘what’ category it was noted that the focus of subjects chosen in the past had often been very narrow —‘In some cases this is the result of decisions to concentrate in a few selected fields or institutions . . .’ It was recommended that ‘Commissions and posts in non-Commission countries deliberately seek to focus more of their activities at a given time on a few broadly conceived areas, subjects or problems, with new emphasis developing as earlier ones are phased out.’
The Board then recommended that the areas of programmic focus should be approached imaginatively and presented in a way designed:
"(a) to be of interest in different parts of the world; (b) to attract persons from various academic disciplines; (c) to be appropriately studied, researched, or taught in foreign and American settings by both foreign and American participants; and (d) to be able frequently to accommodate more than one category of grantee from among lecturers, researchers, and students."
Another list followed, of suggested broad fields of learning:
"— Social change. (Nature, scale and velocity of technological change; its cultural and sociological consequences; minorities; generations; women's role.)
— Educational development and innovation. (The problem of numbers; teaching materials research; adapting new communications media to educational use; English language teaching.) — Use and protection of the environment. (Urban planning and problems; ecology projects; land use.)
— Rediscovery and preservation of cultural legacies. (Collecting, preserving serving, studying, describing, and displaying the creative products of the past.)
— The professions. (The role of architecture, law, medicine, journalism, public administration, business management, mass media management, criticism in the arts, etc.)
— The general problems of minorities. (Ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural, etc.)"
Under the ‘how’ category the Board urged that grants should be given in a way that encouraged people to pool talents and resources, to make the best use of what was available. ‘A pooling of talent and resources will reduce duplication of effort, facilitate sharing of information, and maximise the possibility of successful results.’ Experimentation with grants to teams and institutions was now in order, the Board suggested. Executive Director Laurie Cox has explained what happened:
"‘Educational Exchanges in the Seventies’ had a profound effect on the kind of programme the Foundation promoted. The
1976 programme of visiting American scholars placed emphasis on a few broadly conceived topics (New Zealand Studies, American Studies, Educational Innovation and Social Change) with a view to strengthening certain academic activities. Sponsoring institutions were advised of the Foundation's interest in projects spread over 2-3 years and involving a sequence of visitors. Emphasis on humanities and social sciences at the expense of pure sciences and agriculture. The DSIR and Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries were removed from the list of organisations invited to suggest proposals and replaced by the Planning Council, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research,Turnbull Library ,Queen Elizabeth II Council , National Museum and Art Gallery, Department of Education etc."
The basic criteria for choosing New Zealanders to go to the States had not
changed at all, however; despite the new philosophies, grants were still
made to individuals who were selected for their demonstrated ability,
probable capacity for suitable performance abroad and long-term potential.
The challenge and reward to the individual Fulbrighter was still recognised
as valuable, as Senator Fulbright noted in
"I think of these alumni scattered across the world, acting as knowledgeable interpreters of their own societies; as persons equipped and willing to deal with conflict or conflict-producing situations on the basis of an informed determination to solve them peacefully; as opinion leaders communicating their appreciation of the societies which they visited to others in their own society."
In
It was not a self-congratulatory exercise. While it was agreed that the Fulbright scheme had had a most profound effect on the lives of the participants and their families and colleagues, doubts were also expressed. Had the programme truly promoted ‘international understanding’? Some of the delegates pointed out that political and personal freedoms had actually diminished on a global basis. The benefits, they said, had been personal, not political.
Much of the doubt was expressed in a speech given by Harold R. Isaacs, Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during the three-day summing-up seminar. He called his paper ‘The Closing Societies’. After pointing out that 40,000 Americans and 74,000 citizens of 122 countries had taken part in programmes of educational exchange during the 30 years of the Fulbright-Hays programme, he said:
"Foreign students and scholars who came to the
United States during these three decades had an incomparable opportunity to see at close range how this society went through the convulsions of change in the patterns of race relations, how it responded to the crises of the Vietnam War, and finally how it dealt with the unfolding drama of Watergate. Some no doubt went home believing they had witnessed part of the decline if not nearly the fall, of American civilisation. Others may have been able to see in these events remarkably impressive evidence of surviving health, strength and recuperative capacity in the American system. Many thousands, of course, did not go home at all, but took every means they could to remain and make their lives here, an ultimately decisive comment on their experience.Americans who went abroad as part of this programme also became witnesses of critical history, especially in the new states of Asia and
Africa . What began in Asia andAfrica beginning thirty years ago in the collapse of the colonial empires and the white supremacy system was a massive opening into the world for millions of hitherto isolated, subjected and subordinated people ...But if ever there was a chance that colonial tyranny could be replaced by anything resembling open policies, it withered early.... The fragile shoots of democratic-style politics that did grow out of some colonial soil in a few places, as in the
Philippines andIndia , lived a somewhat longer but sickly life, withering and dying with hardly a twitch after barely twenty-five years.Today no scholar, no educator, no eager student, with or without a Fulbright grant, can follow his own bent in any of these countries any more, or for that matter almost anywhere in the world outside the shrinking sphere of surviving democratic political systems in
Europe andNorth America . Much as they differ, all but perhaps two dozen of the world's 150-odd states are now governed in greater or lesser degree by closed political systems of one kind or another, from total orders of control and mobilisation as in China, to ineffectual little satrapies maintained only by a bloody-handed palace guard, as in Uganda. Never have more ‘liberated’ people become more subject to more tyrannies in the name of achieving more freedom, or in so short a period of time....For at least two centuries now, the notion that ‘education’ would enable human beings to improve their state has remained a prime article of faith for all who remained convinced that knowledge and reason would and could prevail in human affairs. Now that conviction is painfully weaker and we are much less sure than we were that we know what education is in our own society, much less in the rest of the world. We are even less able to know
what ‘international education’ is. In what political context? In and for open societies or for closing or closed ones? To create what sets of values, for whom and for what? Until we can answer these questions for ourselves more effectively than we have until now, I do not know what answers we can make through any process of exchange with the rest of the world. The key word of the next thirty years in any case is not likely to be ‘education’. More likely, for philosophers, and educators, and geologists too, and for us all, it will be ‘survival’. The question will be on what terms." Quoted from A Process of Global Enlightenment', Board of Foreign Scholarships,1976 , pp. 82-86
Senator Fulbright replied, in an address titled ‘The Process of Humanising Mankind’:
"Since earliest times there have been only two ways of establishing peace and order in human groups — violent coercion and the forging of ties of sentiment among the members. In primitive conditions questions of ownership, territory, the forming of groups and their leadership were decided solely by superior force. But in the course of evolution — over many thousands of years — the use of force became modified. Gradually the rules and restraints which we know as law were introduced, forging random groups into communities. In due course the idea of ‘citizenship’ came into being, vesting in those who possessed it certain rights and degrees of security as to their lives and possessions.
As these incipient communities evolved, bonds of mutual loyalty and kinship came into being among their members, reducing though not eliminating the necessity of coercion for the maintenance of internal peace and order. Although only a minority of the nations of the world today are governed by democratic consent and the rule of law in the sense in which we understand and practise these concepts, all but a few are communities to the extent that their people acquiesce in the regimes which rule them; that is, they at least do not have to be controlled by overwhelming force. Modern nations, with few exceptions, are held together primarily by the consent of their members, by their sense of kinship and nationhood, and only incidentally by their internal police forces."
Quoted from A Process of Global Enlightenment', p. 28
It was, however, apparent to all those who attended the conferences that
the world had changed greatly in the 30 years since the start of the programme;
it had become more complicated, and despite the huge increase in
communication capacity, it had become less open. In
"Many of us have been among the fortunate thousands of individuals who
have participated in the exchange of scholars between nations, and still benefit from this experience. A substantial part of the hoped-for rebuilding of the structures and economies of nations so damaged by war has occurred. A great deal of new knowledge and material progress has been achieved — not uniformly throughout our world but at least widely. There is, nevertheless, a strong feeling of disillusionment and discouragement. Rampant and sometimes bitter nationalism, further wars, abuse of the United Nations — that dream of world organisation — overpopulation, pollution and deterioration of the environment — by products of some of the hoped-for material success — along with resource shortages and the obvious limits to our world and of man's wisdom confront us now almost everywhere. Science and technology have lost some of their savour, and for some even taken on the aspects of dangerous phenomena to be exorcised or at least carefully contained."
Quoted from A Process of Global Enlightenment', p. 56
In this last statement he echoed what had been said by Foyohiro Kono of
Gakushuin University,
But — in the words of Senator Fulbright — ‘In view of the current low
estate of the
Accordingly, after debate, a revised set of objectives was produced, along
the lines of what had already been recommended in the ‘Statement on
Educational Exchange in the Seventies’. The conference resolved that,
while benefits should accrue to a host nation, the emphasis of the programme
should be on knowledge sharing among individuals and not on
simple technical expertise. It was decided that the emphasis on technology
and pure science should be shifted to emphasis on subjects related to
pressing world problems: the environment, food, population studies, transportation
and so on. The special needs of the participating countries were to
be taken into consideration; for instance, technical information could be
exchanged in developed
Other goals stated that:
This, too, had an effect on the kind of programme that the Foundation in New Zealand promoted. In accordance with these stated aims, the Board began to look for new directions, to speculate whether, through the programme, new and promising ventures could be promoted; whether the New Zealand-United States Educational Foundation could, in fact, make wise investments in the future development of New Zealand society.
Consequently four general areas of concentration were fixed:
Applicants were encouraged to think in terms of on-going projects that would involve a series of visitors over a three- or four-year period. A long term, well-thought-out and clearly stated proposal was the one most likely to find favour with the Board.
As Laurie Cox has pointed out, the Educational Development Grants had evolved much in the same way:
"The 45-day grants have evolved from the earlier Teacher Development Grant lasting 180 days. The Board felt this was too long a period to be away from home and family and work etc. and the grant was split into two awards of 90 days in
1974 . Subsequent discussions saw the term successively reduced to 90 and then 45 days, with the numbers increased and the scope of the grants widened, for example into the fields of Vocational Development, cultural awards, writers' fellowships and so on.Some grantees have expressed a preference for a longer period, and the
length of the grant was reviewed again in 1986 when the recipients from1980-85 were surveyed. On the basis of the results of the survey the Board reaffirmed its policy of awarding grants that are normally for a term of 45 days, for the consensus of grantees was in favour of that."
This new approach was very demanding, for both the participants and the
programme. The 45-day grants, for instance, were extremely hard work.
Contact with what the alumni called the ‘cutting’ or ‘leading’ edge of theory
and practical application had great value but, as one wrote, ‘In retrospect,
the schedule was probably too tight.’ ‘I just saw and did too much,’ wrote
another. Too many New Zealanders failed to take into consideration the
sheer size of the
‘I really needed a return visit to consolidate and follow up to get full benefit,’ one Kiwi wrote. ‘I'm sure I was dazed and confused at times.’ He gained immensely, however: ‘masses of information and new ideas. Very difficult later to sift out those which were directly applicable to New Zealand.’ Even the accumulation of material caused hassles, simply because of the large amount that was so quickly gathered. However, ‘I gained a measure of comparison of the New Zealand educational system,’ wrote another.
The country certainly benefited. Bruce McLeod, for instance, was on the
Hawke's Bay Community Council and also in charge of the STEPS and TAP
programmes in the
The effects of the Board's new approach became obvious almost immediately,
and were very apparent by the 1980s. By
Jenrose Felmley came to the University of
The American Studies departments at
"The Foundation has a commitment to the development of American Studies as a discipline in New Zealand and in
1986 the Stout Centre withJock Phillips organised a two-day seminar on New Zealand-United States relationships called ‘The American Connection’. This was attended by Fulbrighters who were in the country at the time and subsequently theFoundation agreed to contribute to the cost of publishing the proceedings. On the same theme there is an organisation known as the Australia-New Zealand American Association which meets biennially for a three- to four day conference. The 1986 (May) conference was held inAuckland and the Foundation brought two scholars from theUnited States — Robert Wiebe, a historian, and Jackson MacLow, a poet and composer. When the conference is held inAustralia the Foundation provides travel grants to facilitate the attendance of New Zealand scholars and teachers."
Another new theme has been in the field of entrepreneurism. Bruce Dixon
of the University of
Accordingly the Chairman and the Executive Secretary met Hamish
Keith and Director Michael Volkerling of the
Cultural entrepreneurism has had attention as well. Under a proposal
from the
The lecturing grants have been extended to include arts and culture. In
Louis Harrison involved himself in an art scene ranging ‘from music
through choreography and painting to writing’. ‘New Zealand,’ he wrote,
‘seems to me a very stimulating environment.’ Jack Clay came to New
Zealand for six weeks in
The composer Karl Korte came, and his tenure led to three original
compositions, all of which have been performed. Martin Gibson came on a
lecturer grant in
In the following year Barry Cleavin went on a cultural grant to attend a
lithography conference in Albuquerque. ‘The award,’ he said, ‘added some
extra dignity to my status as artist and lecturer.’ He returned and presented
lectures, set up two lithographic workshops in
The Foundation responded, also, to proposals put forward by the
Alexander Turnbull Library. Sandra Myres came to Wellington in Victoria's Furthest Daughters. David Jones found it ‘extraordinarily pleasant’
to work under the joint auspices of the New Zealand-United States Educational
Foundation and the Alexander Turnbull Library in
"The Foundation began by arranging accommodation in a pleasant book lined cottage owned by a distinguished scholar. They went on to serve as a home away from home, not just in terms of such mundane matters as mail, but also by providing the human warmth that must often be missed by the travelling researcher.
The Turnbull Library must be one of the most pleasant scholarly environ ments around. Even in the midst of preparations for a move to new
quarters, the Director and staff took a real interest in my research, offering both helpful professional advice and pleasant social occasions. A great library as concerned with diffusing as with preserving its material is a rare place, and a delightful one."
There has been, Laurie Cox has pointed out, a growth in the Foundation's support (usually a travel grant) for distinguished Americans visiting New Zealand for seven to 10 days to feature at conferences.
"In
August 1987 we brought out Eugene Brody for the Mental Health Conference. Earlier the same year David Weikart was brought here for the Early Childhood Convention, and two years earlier Irving Lazar for the same conference. Harlan Cleveland, John Outterbridge and Joseph Jaudon came in1986 . In1985 Malcolm Arth came for the Museum Education Conference and Shirley Ririe and Joan Woodbury for the International Dance and the Child Conference.Quite a lot has been done in the area of counselling, social work and mediation. Working with the justice Department and Family Court judges, we sponsored the visits of Hugh McIsaac (
1985 ) in establishing programmes for separated and divorced parents and this was followed up in1986 with John Haynes presenting seminars in mediation skills for professionals. Theuniversity departments offering programmes in social work over the period 1980-84 hosted three scholars and in1987 Wynn Tabbert (helped) the Department of Social Welfare develop a programme which provides for consumer participation in the development of policy and practice."
In
Clyde Griffen came from Vasaar in
‘As a research scholar,’ wrote Judith A. Hoffberg, who held a cultural
award in
"In the 35 boxes of papers and 6 boxes of slides and tapes, I found the life of a genius.... The 50 000 pieces of paper, photographs, documents have all been inventoried and computerised, as well as organised and housed archivally. As a result, a computerised catalogue to the collection is now on disks on an Apple computer, as well as printed out. A guide to users is being written to accompany the disks and computer-printout so that researchers and scholars will be able to utilise the estimated 500 microfiche without ever having to come to
New Plymouth , New Zealand."
New Zealand sculptor James Charlton was a Fulbright student in
"
What struck me most about New Zealanders was the distinctly ‘British’ character of their ways. In no other respect is the best of British heritage more pronounced than in the exemplary behaviour of children. On boarding a bus, more than once did one or more small school children jump to their feet to offer me, an elderly gentleman (though not all that frail) their seat.One memory of a bus ride is unforgettably inscribed on my memory: we were approaching the terminal stop, and few people were left in the bus. An elderly lady up front had engaged the driver in a conversation. A boy of teen or preteen/age had advanced to just behind the driver's seat, clearly with the intent of asking the driver a question. It seemed to be an urgent one — as if concerning his getting off at the right stop. The driver did not see the boy and was unaware of his obvious eagerness to address him. His conversation with the old lady continued throughout the stop — one of the last ones on this route. The boy bounced forward on the tips of his toes, trying to attract the driver's attention. He failed. Yet, despite his clear desire to speak with the driver, he did not dare to interrupt the on-going conversation. Thus, the bus continued on its way ... Such mannerly self-restraint in a youngster! Where else in the world could this be found in our day?"
George F. Rohrlich , Fulbright researcher/lecturer,1980
"I still remember calling the Consulate-General's office in
Los Angeles when I first considered coming to New Zealand. They told me over the phone that it was impossible, except under very extreme circumstances, to do a PhD in New Zealand. I requested the necessary applications anyway, and then the woman said, ‘Well if you could get a Fulbright then it would be possible.’ With my usual optimism I decided then and there that somehow or other I'd get a Fulbright. It completely changed the course of my career. Thanks to the Fulbright the ‘impossible’ is being achieved."Linda Lively , Fulbright graduate student,1983
"I found that I got little response initially when I wrote to universities because I was to them an ‘unknown’. I applied for a Fulbright, partly for some financial assistance, but more as an introduction. Indeed, once I could
say I was ‘a Fulbright’ then most universities I applied to made me welcome."
Roger Hall, Fulbright lecturer,1982
"I'm less sure of a lot of things than I used to be. I cannot tell direction in these antipodean hills where the winter sun moves across the northern sky and cold antarctic winds blow up from the south. I suffer from a sort of temporal vertigo. I've had to learn new traffic rules, reversed phone dials, the fact that the water goes down the drain hole the other way round. When I take a trowel out to my back garden to aid the early spring flowers I poke in the borders, but I'm not sure which green tendrils are the weeds. Even the stars are different here — the winter constellations spread out across a cold August sky in a way that is foreign but tauntingly familiar. I see no Big Dipper on these clear, chilly nights, only a Southern Cross pointing straight to the icy heart of that pole.
When I had been in New Zealand four days I wrote in my journal,
It is
strange and somewhat dislocating to scruff your way through autumn leaves on a May
evening that has fallen rapidly as evenings in autumn do. It is even stranger to seethose leaves gather around the base of a hibiscus in bloom, to pick up the scent of flowers whose name you do not know, to see the shape of palm trees against the crepuscular sky over Albert Park and out beyond them near the harbour to see a crescent moon and what looks like the evening star in a place it has no right to be.And yet that's why I came to New Zealand, to be dislocated, cracked open, forced out of my shell of preconceptions about how the world spins. That's why I applied for a Fulbright grant to lecture in American literature for six months at a small North Island university, a choice most of my colleagues found quixotic. I wanted to learn to see again."
Sonia Gernes , Fulbright lecturer,1986
"Perhaps the best way I can describe my experience is to relate my first week in Wellington. I arrived on a Thursday before Queen's Birthday weekend after the long trans-
Pacific flight and a connecting flight fromAuckland . Faced with the prospect of a long weekend in a strange city and country with cold and rainy weather was not the most pleasant idea. But from the very beginning I was immediately made to feel at home. Indeed, inAuckland the staff of Air New Zealand had gone out of their way to assist me and Laurie Cox was waiting for me at the Wellington airport. He took me to my apartment, showed me the shopping area, introduced me to my landlord (who lived upstairs) and the following morning walked with me from my flat (across from Victoria University) to the Library, helped me open a bank account and gave me a good introduction to what I might expect.I then went to the Turnbull and visited with Jim Traue, met members of the staff and discovered that everything had been planned to give me a ‘super’ welcome. By the time I left the Library my entire weekend was taken up with tours of the city, luncheons and dinners and a chance to meet people and get to feel at home."
Sandra Myres , Fulbright researcher,1982
"I found the two countries so different in size, in scale and in modes of operation that I felt it impossible — even insensitive — to attempt comparisons. Rather I approached any situation with the questions, what is it I like/dislike about what I am seeing/hearing/feeling? Then what is our equivalent of this situation, whether it be good or bad? Through this approach and the benefits of five years of hindsight I have seen dimensions of our work (diversity and education) appear in this country since my visit which were not apparent in
1982 . This confirms a belief that the New Zealand scene is very highly influenced by what happens in the USA but that it follows several years later. I believe this could be turned to New Zealand's advantage. We could anticipate more and be less likely to repeat mistakes, providing it is the issues we identify, not the detail."Brian Leabourn , Fulbright educational development scholar,1981
"As a person with experience in language and refugees, I was interested in
new migrants adapting into a new country. America is so diverse and nearly everyone is a migrant of recent generations. I asked people what they thought holdsAmerica together, what contributed to patriotism, what is the essence ofAmerica to a new migrant.It was interesting that most people said language holds Americans together, as I came across a number of people surviving quite well without English. The flying of the American flag seemed to me to be a more uniting symbol.
In Albuquerque my host was a middle-aged man who drove a fairly battered Toyota. This was unusual on two counts, first that the car was an old and battered one, and secondly that it was Japanese. Before I could comment on this he said, ‘I should explain about my car. I feel bad not buying American but I think Japanese cars are better. That's how I get over my guilt feelings.’ He nodded out his window to the aerial, which had an American flag attached."
Rosemary Middleton , Fulbright educational development scholar,1982
"When I first got to New Zealand I was really guidebook-ignorant. After spending about nine months there I sure knew more than when I first got off the plane. While there and after I developed a real warmth for the place. New Zealand was a whole new world that I loved at once and knew virtually nothing about. For me, the Fulbright was pretty exhausting, but a wonderfully positive experience.
I found almost every aspect of New Zealand that I encountered to be refreshing. The place really is as beautiful as the guidebooks make it out to be. This surprised me. I found the preliminary warnings about excessive automobile expenses to be incorrect. I bought an Austin mini (used — really used) for $900. True, gas was expensive, but a mini doesn't use much gas. I very much like the New Zealand notion of throwing nothing away. That mentality got me the car, after all."
Patrick Morrow , Fulbright lecturer,1981
"The plan was to drive across the USA, coast to coast. So finally we decided on a mobile home. You've probably seen the kind of thing on our roads at holiday time: large vans with sleeping accommodation above the driver's cabin; a dining table which folds down into a bed; a gas cooker and fridge; and sometimes a toilet and shower as well. There are thousands and thousands ands of them in the USA where, for many people, they are a way of life. But what type should I get? How much were secondhand ones? Where should you park them at night?
The most helpful publication was
Trailer Life. Trailer Lifegave no
indication how much secondhand RV's (Recreational Vehicles) would cost, but the price of new ones was alarming — $20,000 and up. But I took heart from knowing that almost everything secondhand in the USA is always cheap. I estimated I'd be able to pick up something in good condition for about $5,000 and then be able to sell it for almost as much as we paid for it once we got it to the other side of the country. I was to be wrong on both counts.One useful thing I did get from
Trailer Lifewas the name of a dealer in Los
Angeles, called Travelland. Travelland covered 35 acres. It was so big it even had its own restaurant. Thirty-five acres! The thought was enough to keep me awake at nights. I have difficulty enough choosing what type of ballpoint pen to get. How was I going to be able to select one vehicle from 35 acres of them?Travelland turned out to be a group of dealers, most of whom dealt only in new vehicles. There were very few secondhand ones. After half an hour we found one for $8,500, and a further hour's search revealed two more at $9,000 each. And then all our prayers were answered. A van with its price marked clearly on the windscreen, eighty-two-twenty. It looked brandnew, the fittings were luxurious, there was every comfort you could think of. And all for a little over eight thousand dollars!
But, I thought, I'd better check the price with the dealer. ‘That vehicle, sir, is $23,176. Plus tax,’ he said.
‘But — Eighty-two-twenty?’
It was a nineteen-eighty-two model, twenty feet long. We decided to have lunch at the restaurant."
Roger Hall , Fulbright lecturer,1982
"I began looking for a vehicle on a street in
Palmerston North that was lined with used car dealers. The high prices and the steering wheel on the opposite side made me quite tentative, but I finally worked up the courage to test-drive a Ford. The salesman, a young man, looked a bit concerned ashe watched me attempt to get the car off the lot. Not being used to shifting with my left hand or looking in the right place for the mirrors, it was probably three or four minutes before I got onto the street. By this time I was feeling pretty calm. I drove along a wide, quiet street for several blocks and then ran into a roundabout. Having never encountered one before, I decided to wait and see what other cars did. It wasn't long until a car came from my left and slipped through the roundabout smoothly. I watched it drive away and then entered the roundabout and turned right, the same direction as the other car.
I proceeded several more blocks, navigated through a rather confusing set of lights, and then turned into a road leading into the countryside and picked up speed. After a mile or so I decided to turn around and head back into town. It was at this moment that I realised that I had been concentrating so hard on driving the car that I had forgotten which dealer I had gotten it from."
Thomas Sauer , Fulbright graduate student,1985
"Once I put a slight dent in a car bumper and went in search of a body shop in order to have it repaired. When I asked someone in Hamilton for advice as to which body shop he recommended, I was astonished to learn that only one existed in a city of 100,000 people. ‘Go down the main street,’ he said. ‘Take a left, and you'll see it on the left about five blocks down. It's called the Queen of Hearts.’ I hastened to explain that I needed to locate an automobile repair shop. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘You mean you want a panel-beater!’"
Richard Curry , Fulbright lecturer,1981
"I bought some designer (Bill Blass, for those in the know) sheets, pillow- cases and comforter, in navy and white. This made quite a sizeable package all encased in slippery plastic.
I set out for New York with my bag, my sheets and comforter wrapped in plastic, and a pile of papers from ETS, also in plastic. This motley collection, bulky and heavy, had been lashed onto a luggage trundler, expecting that the bus would have a luggage compartment. But no, and I had to try to manoeuvre this contraption down the narrow aisle to the back of the bus. Turned sideways, it would not roll on its wheels. Turned frontways, it was too wide for the aisle and the plastic snagged on the seats. I eventually wriggled it to the rear and hung onto the thing for the whole journey during which it repeatedly tried to lie down in the aisle. I then had to face getting off again but had figured that if there were no people sitting with heads to be knocked off, I could lift it about the seats and walk sideways down the bus. It worked!
Negotiated the bus steps, got down the terminal stairway, managed to ride down an escalator, walked a block underground, found the right platform for my train, trundled the contraption to the train by which stage the plastic packages had slipped out of the knots and lashings and had to be pummelled back into place every ten minutes. Got out at 116th Street and
carried the bundle, like a corpse on a stretcher, upstairs to street, trundled to Amsterdam Avenue and 120th Street, then up the Victorian steps of Whittier, through the electronically controlled door, into an elevator, up nine floors, along the corridor, opened two door locks and then home! The sheets and comforter looked great on the bed. Also was able to put my only other ones through the wash."
Geraldine McDonald , Fulbright researcher,1981
"During my first week in the States I had a phone call from my contact in ten days' time.
He told me who he was and said he had everything jacked up for my stay. He would meet me at the airport; I would spend my first night in my booked hotel but from then on he had other ideas.
‘I need to know a couple of things about you,’ he said. ‘Do you play bowls?’ Rather stunned, I thought of lawn bowls in New Zealand and said, 'No, I'm not that old.'
‘Ah, we'll teach you,’ he said. ‘What about playing around with little planes?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven't done much of that since I was very young.’ ‘Oh! How about bike-riding, then?’
Well, I had never been on a cycle track, not even on a racing bike, so, ‘I'm sorry,’ I said.
‘Oh? Hell! What about golf?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said.‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I'll meet you at the airport.’ Well, the outcome was:
A night of skittle bowls had been arranged. I had hospitality with people with a six-seater Cessna. I had hospitality with people who cycled as a family. It snowed so I couldn't play golf."
Roy Young , Fulbright educational development researcher,1980
"My wife and I tend to talk the most about the graciousness and generosity of people whom we met throughout the islands. There was that time in
Nelson when both kids had chicken pox. The motel owner, noticing the children's ailment, phoned his own doctor. Soon the phone rang in our room. It was a Sunday afternoon and the doctor had offered to come to the motel and take a look at our children. A house call — on a Sunday afternoon! Then there was the time that I drove through Hamilton at 6 o'clock in the morning. Hamilton, a large town by New Zealand's standards, had a couple of gas stations open at that time. I pulled in, filled the tank, and asked the gentleman with the pump if he sold coffee. He said, 'No, I don't sell coffee. But I just put on a pot and I could sure use the company. Come on, let's have a chat.'I was on a whirlwind tour sponsored by the Art Galleries and Museums Association in New Zealand. As I left, I guess what impressed me the most
was watching the openings of Te Maori. As the Taonga returned from its United States tour, I saw the power that museums have to encourage racial relations and promote the best kind of nationalism. I left just as Te Maori was making its tour through the islands. I have to tell you that leaving at that time was like having a wonderful novel ripped from my hands just minutes before I got into the climax.I need to return to this country, and the sooner the better. It almost seems like a fantasy to me now that I ever went. But occasionally I'll show my slides and discuss the experience with friends here in Williamsburg and the reality will return. There is such a place as New Zealand, and waiting to get back there is fortifying and entertaining in its own right."
William J. Tramposch , Fulbright researcher,1986