Higher Education in Vietnam: United States Agency for International Development Contract in Education, Wisconsin State University – Stevens Point and Republic of Vietnam The Wisconsin Contract in Higher Education and other USAID/ Wisconsin Team Efforts By Thomas Charles Reich May 2003 2003 UWSP Distinguished Thesis Award 2004 UMI/MAGS (Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools) ParamGun Sood Thesis Award 2004 Portage County (WI) Historical Society Winn Rothman Award (for research and manuscript based on local history) 2 3 President Lyndon Baines Johnson with Vietnamese University Rectors (seated) USAID officials and WSU-SP President Lee Sherman Dreyfus (standing) This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Betty X. Reich January 1, 1915 – July 5, 2001 Her educational courage and wisdom were only exceeded by the unquestioning love and support which she always gave to me. 4 ABSTRACT “Higher Education in Vietnam: USAID Contract in Education, Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point and Republic of Vietnam” Thomas C. Reich This thesis explores an important but little known facet of America’s war in Vietnam: the U.
effort to reform the South Vietnamese system of higher education as part of the broader “nation-building” process in the fledgling Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Specifically it examines the interaction among Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point (now the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point), the U. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the government of South Vietnam to implement change. The study is based on extensive research in manuscript materials relating to the education mission in the UW-Stevens Point Archives, on oral history interviews with key participants, and on a broad range of other primary and secondary works on Vietnamese history and education, U.
foreign policy, and America’s general effort to implement nation-building during the Cold War era. After a brief introduction on literature and methodology, the thesis establishes context for the U. mission by tracing the history of traditional education in Vietnam from ancient times to the 19 th century, stressing the strong influence of Chinese Confucian models. Under French colonial rule in the 19 th and 20th centuries, the French revamped higher education along European lines, but skewed it to produce a subordinate Vietnamese administrative class to support French dominance.
involvement with Vietnamese higher education began with the Geneva Accords in 1954, which established an independent RVN, and the onset of the Second Indochina War. In order to bolster South Vietnamese resistance, USAID launched a multifaceted effort to develop education at all levels, contracting with American universities for advice and support. In 1967, USAID recruited President James H. Albertson of WSU-SP to head a group of educators, the original “Wisconsin Team,” to survey and report on colleges and universities in the RVN.
Albertson and other members of the team were killed in a plane crash near Da Nang in March, but other WSU-SP personnel completed the survey and later that year the university signed a contract umbrella with USAID and the South Vietnamese government to continue the collaboration. This agreement launched a six-year program by which WSU-SP was the principal institutional adviser to the South Vietnamese system of higher education. On numerous occasions, WSU-SP administrators visited the RVN, submitting detailed reports that suggested changes in curricula, faculty training, student relations, administration, and organization. Moreover, teams of leading South Vietnamese educators frequently visited the U., including extended stays on the WSU-SP campus.
Not surprisingly, while emphasizing the importance of developing a Vietnamese blueprint, the thrust of the Wisconsin Team’s advice was to restructure public higher education in the RVN on the model of the American state university system. The Vietnamese were impressed by the organizational structure at the institutional and state system levels. They detected a model for growth from the rapid expansion of American higher education, admiring the independent nature of American universities as campus units that afforded educators and students with most necessities. While motivated in part by institutional ambitions, Wisconsin Team members revealed a strong and sincere ideological commitment to exporting American educational values, improving their Vietnamese counterparts, and widening educational opportunities in the RVN.
Although limited success occurred in some areas, such as university record-keeping and administration, wartime conditions inhibited broad changes, and the mission was eventually overwhelmed by events—the gradual withdrawal of U. forces, the “cease-fire” of 1973, the diminished funding for USAID contractual obligations in South Vietnam, and the collapse of the RVN during the North Vietnamese Spring Offensive of 1975. In recent years, indications of the resiliency of mission objectives surfaced with the attempted renewal of educational relations on the part of Vietnamese educators from a unified Vietnam who visited Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1998. 5 Table of Contents Volume I Abstract Acknowledgements Definition of Terms I.
Introduction 14 Review of Related Literature Methodology II. History of Higher Education in Vietnam 32 III. Aid to South Vietnamese Higher Education and the Prelude of the Wisconsin Mission 110 IV. Wisconsin State University – Stevens Point and Educational Reform in the Republic of Vietnam 168 V.
The Aftermath: Higher Education in Vietnam and the Wisconsin Mission Revisited, Reflections of Lee Sherman Dreyfus, Nguyen Quynh-Hoa, Charles Green, and Burdette Eagon 316 Bibliography 375 Volume II Appendices 385 I. Supplementary Transcriptions of Related Tapes and Interviews II. Chronological Listing of Vietnamese War and Contacts between Wisconsin State University-Stevens Point and Republic of Vietnam III. Related Documents IV.
Vietnamese Declaration of Independence 6 Acknowledgements Any writer and educator, much less historian, has recurrent thoughts about the events and the consequential people whom one encounters during crucial times in one’s work and life. Without such special associates, friends, and cohorts one’s work or story would be incomplete. To acknowledge those who have guided, assisted, encouraged and supported my research and writing is perhaps the easiest part of this graduate project. To those with whom I have honed my skills and matured as a historian I offer my deepest acknowledgement and sincere gratitude.
Top among these must be the entire University of Wisconsin Department of History, whose faculty and staff has become my extended family, and whose friendship and professionalism have truly demonstrated to me the full meaning of those two prized qualities. My graduate work and studies have taken me through a diverse realm of historiography and apprenticeship with Professors Brewer, Foret, Kent, Lewis, Mertz, Peguero, Pistono, Roberts, Skelton, Walker, Wick, Yonke, and others. Such colleagueship and professional acceptance rank among the most valued commodities in both education and life. Chiefly, my special thanks go to my longtime academic adviser Professor William Skelton for his enduring advice, patience, friendship, support and willingness to share his own skills and knowledge, which have proven invaluable as models of proficiency in all realms of American history, authorship in military history, and overall editorial know-how.
I wish to thank Dr. Hugh Walker for his outstanding expertise in East Asian history, exposé of Western biases, and great insight of Vietnamese history and culture. Further, I am grateful to Dr. Neil Lewis for his exceptional departmental leadership, support and humanity, and to all for their notable solidarity and encouragement.
My thanks also go to Nettie and Jan, two models of efficiency as departmental program assistants and personal allies. My own prowess and perseverance as a researcher was fortified by the recognition I received when I was awarded the UWSP Graduate Council Award as Outstanding Graduate Assistant, which recognized my work as Graduate Assistant with the Department of History and College of Letters and Science. My thanks to those who have been part of that distinction and the 7 Chancellor’s Leadership Award, which I received at the zenith of my studies in recognition of my academic achievements, diverse public service efforts at UWSP and duties as coordinator for National History Day. My acknowledgements extend to others with who I worked and studied as a graduate assistant in the UWSP School of Education.
My graduate studies in the SOE were enriched by the emblematic teaching skills of Professor Jay Price and Professor William Kirby, who modeled true openness in terms of innovative teaching methods, ideas and educational research; kind kudos to Dr. Katzmarek, and to the entire SOE. My personal recognition and gratitude is everlasting for those who have assisted me in building the foundations of my own chronicle of growth; for the special few who I have lost along the way I say, “I Wish You Were Here.” Above all, I thank those who have demonstrated true friendship by being there when needed in times of great success or loss. I acknowledge those who have been there when needed and fortified my statue with the wisdom and edification that has opened both new gates and old doors through which I and others can review and resuscitate responsibilities in history.
In many ways, those special few, both mentioned and unmentioned, will always be with me in my life and work. Education, research, and writing have become true expressions of the solid values I have found in the academic world and of the magnificence of life itself. My many hours of research and writing have been enriched by the efforts by those who have guided and assisted me, and importantly by those who stayed the course before me. The very worth of my project is due to the ideas of those educators who formed the Wisconsin Team and traveled to the other side of the world, to Vietnam, on an educational mission embodied with democratic ideals even as humanity exploded around them.
The members of the Wisconsin Team truly sought to extend reform with a humane vision for education and history by bringing forth a semblance of reason and wisdom, during a time of uncontrolled change. In turn, it has become my task to carry forth this vision to others today with my thesis and life. I wish to thank those educators of a different time and 8 different place, those of this time and place, and those who my pick-up the banner in future times. For this reason, I thank all with whom I have traveled and will travel through history while striving to document and agelessly preserve such eternal values of education and freedom.
As a historian it is not my measure to question fate, but in terms of my thesis project, it is sheer circumstance that the namesake of my workplace, the James H. Albertson Learning Resource Center, is that of the original leader of the Wisconsin State Team. His educational leadership and integrity have left a permanent imprint on the entire university, and the LRC stands daily as a testament of President Albertson’s educational and humane prowess. Working and writing within such confines has added a personal meaning to the countless hours I have spent working to articulate the story of the Wisconsin Team, and provided an added strength from which I have drawn daily inspiration and reinforcement.
Historically, where would my thesis be without the very visions of educational courage, wisdom, and cultural understanding modeled by the Wisconsin Team? In a sense, one small chapter in educational reform in Stevens Point, in Vietnam, in university-Agency relations, and in American assistance programs across globe stands as a legacy for the work of this man and others associated with the Wisconsin Team, and of those they touched. They looked to open new frontiers in education; they reached for the moon hoping others would shine. My special thanks go to longtime Wisconsin Team Chief-of-Party, Dr. Eagon opened his home, educational dexterity and intellect to me, revealing a treasury of project-related resources and educational wisdom.
I am indebted to Dr. Eagon for the courtesies extended to me. I feel privileged to have witnessed the paramount of amity and love that Burdette and Sarah Eagon infinitely have spread to countless others, from their educational presence in Stevens Point to the furthest continents of the world. The Eagons’ life work, words, and actions constitute a core curriculum for educational righteousness.
I turned to Dr. Eagon for historical corroboration and advice, and found a legacy of educational validation.