Previous Reports on the
subject Research Paper c.1984 *Notes on Research paper compiled
by Daniel J. Fleischmann
Upon our gathering of conclusions, we found a research paper on foreign
students at Dickinson College, which contains evidence of research done
using the note cards we found as one of the main sources.
In 1984, a student wrote
on the subject of foreign students, giving statistics and evidence
of foreign students who attended Dickinson College, from the opening of
the college to 1975. Upon checking the information with the given
sources, several discrepancies were found, including poor citing
which prevented review of all given data. There were three sources
used that we had not seen in our research. The
first was a list of foreign students from 1957. This source contained
a list of five names, people who were listed to attend Dickinson College
the next semester. However, only one was listed as a member of the
class of 1961, when researching the 1964 Dickinson College Directory
of Living Alumni. This person had a drop-file,but it
contained only a letter from the college, congratulating the student for
receiving his diploma. The next source was a folder
entitled "Dickinson College. Hungarian refugee Students. Correspondence" It was a folder containing a large amount
of data. Placement of any pertinent information was not noted by
the writer of the research paper, so it was difficult to extract any data
from the source. All that was listed was the name of the folder.
Most of the sources were poorly cited, with only sources were listed, no
page numbers or other detailed references. The note cards come into
the picture when information under the third major source came up in the
research paper. The source is attributed to a folder George Shuman.
Dickinson College. Foreign Students. Shelf 1975 (DCA). There was
no record of it in the note card index, however, the year of the source,
1975, is the same year the note cards were compiled. The statistics given in the paper were very
similar to the statistics we compiled from the note cards. We compiled
data before we realized the note cards were bogus and discounted them from
our research. The writer claims that 25 German students attended
and 8 Japanese attended, we came up with the same numbers. The writer
noted that it was strange that no Italians came, because Dickinson has
a connection with Italy, but one student from far away Nepal did attend.
We noted the same exact thing in our research. Even the number of
countries represented was approximately the same. The note cards are located
in the drop file for foreign students. There is no explanation of
what they represent, however, someone used them as a basis for their paper.
The note cards have no reflection or historical accuracy on the subject
of foreign students who attended Dickinson as a full time student.
EXCHANGE STUDENTS??
We have reason to believe
that these note cards may have been lists of exchange students. The
writer's definition of a foreign student seems to mean a person from
a foreign country who attended Dickinson. Since there is no record
of most of the individuals on the note cards, they may have
been students who went abroad, just like students in Dickinson's abroad
program. The title of the note cards,
Foreign Student Program
suggests
that these were not necessarily 4 year students because there are usually
not programs meant to recruit four-year students. Foreign student
programs usually mean exchange students. The fact that the students
on the note cards have no record of graduating or even attending Dickinson
as full-time student also lead us to believe that the note cards were listing
exchange students.
CONCLUSION
It appears that the writer
of this paper used the note cards and other inconclusive information to
construct a paper, which basically, has no historical merit.
The writer did not clearly indicate where sources could be located, which
made it difficult to follow up on her research. There was not a clear
distinction of the criteria used to categorize a student as a "foreign
student" nor was it clear whether the students being referred to were four-year
students or exchange students. The task of compiling the history
of foreign students who attended this institution cannot be concluded by
one source. It took many sources to simply get an idea of the past
record foreign student population in the history of Dickinson College,
and there still much left unknown. All sources that are found need
to be checked for authenticity, so that pseudo-history is not created,
as it was in the 1984 research paper.
