Happy New Year. I am student of Shahid Chamran University in the field of clinical psychology with M. A. degree from Iran. I want to continue my education in this field. Would you please guide me…How can I get fund scholarship for PhD there? What should I do? I don’t have TOEFL but I got 57 at MCHE (An Asian English Language Examination) recently (2008). I will get TOEFL or IELTS in 5-6 months till now. I wrote two proposals in my two favorite fields for Ph. D: Neuropsychology (The comparison of impulsivity in responsive and non-responsive Obsessive-Compulsive patients to SSRI’s.), and family/couple therapy (The effect of sexual education on Sexual myths and sexual satisfaction in couples). I have one ISI article and one international article (Malaya congress, 2007). Also, I have 2 original and one review articles in some famous scientific Persian printed journals in Iran. I have 2 certificates (Clinical Cognitive-Behavioral Group Therapy, and Clinical Hypnotherapy) from Iranian Psychological Association (2008), and Iranian Clinical Hypnotherapy Association (2008). I did practical psychotherapy (Individual, Couple, Family, & Hypnotherapy) at Dr. Alavi Fazel’s (Psychiatrist and Hypnotherapist- Jondi Shapoor University, Ahwaz, Iran) clinic for 2 years.

Sincerely yours,
Majid

I think that universities don’t have to give any security clearances to the visa-issuing authorities, except of course now for Iranian students (and probably for students from some other countries, like North Korea). This is indeed one of the points of critique. With the guarantee that the ministries are demanding the responsibility has shifted from the Dutch Intellegence/Security Service to the Universities.

You mention that “in many cases these clearances were on their face unlikely to be granted”. The question is whether the universities have a role in this decision. This does not seem the case in your experience, but it now is the case in this recent Dutch policy.

I was working as an international student advisor for Columbia and NYU in the years preceding and following 9-11. Universities then, as they are now, were allowed to grant admission to whomever they wished; but consular offices were required to obtain security clearances for nationals of certain countries and/or for students in certain fields of study – and in many cases these clearances were on their face unlikely to be granted or took so long as to make admission a moot question. Effectively, this meant and continues to mean that certain students, even though granted admission by their respective universities, were nevertheless likely never to arrive due to visa denials. But this at least allowed the ethical debate to be ‘exported’ from the academic realm to the diplomatic service and security apparatus who were seen as responsible for making the ultimate decision to allow or not allow a student to enter. We in the international offices often wondered at the realism of some of the departments in admitting students that were unlikely to be allowed into the country, but at the same time if the departments are working on academic grounds, then we couldn’t not act on their decisions and provide the paperwork needed for the visa application even though we knew the visas were often not going to be forthcoming.

If a student was granted a visa and allowed to enter the U.S., then the University had no role in policing a student’s activities (beyond reporting any kind of obviously criminal behavior) since it would be difficult to do so on both academic freedom and practical grounds.

It’s interesting to see how different university systems are expected to shoulder different kinds of practical, and ethical, burdens.