Higher Education in Vietnam

606 Pages·2012·4.98 MB·English

by  Tom Reich

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)
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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.
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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.S.
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.S.
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.S. 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.S.
mission by tracing the history of traditional education in Vietnam from ancient times to the 19th century,
stressing the strong influence of Chinese Confucian models. Under French colonial rule in the 19th 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. U.S. 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.S., 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.S. 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.
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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. U.S. 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
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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
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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. Caro, Dr. Cook, Dr. DeHart, 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
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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. Burdette Eagon.
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.
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My gratitude, too, for the time and oral historiography contributions of Governor Lee
Sherman Dreyfus, former Chancellor of WSU-SP/UWSP; Dr. Charles Green, former Chief of the
USAID Education Office in Saigon; and Dr. Nguyen Quynh-Hoa, longtime interpreter with the
USAID Vietnam Education Division and Educational Assistant to the Wisconsin Team. The
work of these and other educators who came together under the auspices of the USAID and
Wisconsin Team stands center stage among my acknowledgements. Their reports and reflections
have proved to be an invaluable foundation for my thesis.
Irrevocably and eternally, I acknowledge the greatest gift I have received both as a
historian and individual, that being the love a son receives from his extraordinary parents. The
love my parents displayed for education and public service has and always will direct me on a
course dedicated to working for a better world, filled with tolerance, sensitivity and compassion.
With my father a lawyer-politician and mother a teacher-counselor, I was nourished on the milk
of American political science and fed by a history of teaching, learning, patience, understanding,
and a sharing in the construction of knowledge. The unconditional love I received from my
father and mother has and will carry me through both challenge and success. It is from my
mother’s love, in my own heart and mind that I dedicate this thesis to my mother, Betty X. Reich.
The unbending sensitivity of my mother’s love has left me with the ability and wisdom to thank
those around me and given me the purpose of celebrating every day as a gift with the knowledge
that we all can make a difference, as we all are makers of history. Some years ago, it was through
my studies in history with Professor Skelton that I found a rewarding avenue to rebuild my own
generational and family bonds as I embarked on a World War II oral history project with my
mother and those of her generation. I found a common ground of history that awaits us all, as we
turn to and learn from those from which we are created and supported. I recollect my mother’s
love and devotion to education and to her sons as I carry my ideals forward. In the same light, I
must thank my Aunt Jo Ann Henderson (Jodie), who has truly been a second mother to me, and
whose kindness and love, stands second to none.
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My own shadows and those of the world around me have faded in and out as I have
embarked on a passage from an urban childhood, to a turbulent and radical young adulthood
during the war-torn years of the American-Vietnam conflict, to a rural lifestyle in Wisconsin, to a
return to the columns of higher education at UWSP and a profession in an academic library.
Indeed, life offers a continual path for change through the construction of knowledge. History
not only allows each of us to make and interpret events, it offers us an avenue to take stock of the
world we all are part of. To acknowledge that we are not trapped in our own history, but that we
can learn from life’s lessons and do the best we can with our natural and learned abilities in a
manner that contributes to those around us. In my personal journey and in my educational
pursuits the winds of change have served as agents for growth. As I turn my back pages, in the
words of another troubadour of the past, “I was so much older then, I younger than that now.”1
For now and all time I thank those who have aided my research and supported me through my
educational and ageless experiences.
Finally, I wish to extend my sincere gratitude to the facilities, faculty and staff of the
James H. Albertson Center for Learning Resources. Chief among those I wish to acknowledge
the friendship and professional wisdom of Axel Schmetzke, whose timely considerations have
fortified my stewardship when difficulties came my way. I have grown as a researcher and
educator while finding professional derivation through the diversity of my work experiences in
various areas of the University Library, including my current responsibilities in Government
Documents and Special Collections. A special recognition is due to the collections held in the
University Library’s Nelis Kampenga Archives and the services provided by InterLibrary Loan,
both departments have played key roles in my research.
It is with deep appreciation that I thank these people and areas of support that have made
my research possible and enhanced by own vision. These are the people with whom I would

1 Dylan, Bob. “My Back Pages,” Another Side of Bob Dylan, New York: Columbia Records, Inc., 1964.