Acknowledgments
Any book, but especially a first book, requires a rather large supporting cast. This one would not be possible without the wide-ranging support of my wife and good friend Stacie Long, who edited and formatted the manuscript, created the map in the introduction, and even designed the cover image. Beyond her technical contributions, her patience and wise counsel have also been essential resources. Series editors Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit have been strenuous advocates for my work. I could not ask for a more distinguished and thoughtful group of advisors than my dissertation committee: Oren Pizmony-Levy, Lisa Anderson, Noah Drezner, Carolyn Riehl, and Andrew Delbanco. Without them, I would not have had such a strong manuscript to serve as the foundation for this book. Ted Purinton and Jennifer Skaggs of the American University in Cairo invited me to contribute a chapter to their book on American universities abroad, which provided a helpful early opportunity to work out some of the ideas that found their way into this manuscript. Parts of this work also appeared in International Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. I am similarly grateful to the editors of these publications.
Special thanks go to my mother-in-law Beth Burroughs, who eagerly and excellently transliterated hundreds of pages of correspondence about the founding of Robert College hand-written in abstruse 19th-century cursive. I also received research assistance from numerous graduate and undergraduate students. Abda Kazemi adeptly transcribed dozens of interviews. Hayat Seid, Giulia Turchetti, and Jakub Bartoszewski also provided transcription assistance. The intrepid Allison Davis made multiple trips to the archives of the American College of Greece on my behalf in order to access and digitize the papers of Louis Vrettos. Kris Ahn capably performed, often on short notice, numerous and vital web-based research tasks. An assemblage of volunteer graduate student research assistants helped me to create an initial database of American universities abroad in the early part of 2015. I am deeply grateful to each of these aides.
Over the past few years, several organizations have provided important financial and in-kind research support, including the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, the National Security Education Program, New York University Abu Dhabi, and Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and Teachers College. Dozens of librarians and archivists at the Rockefeller Archives Center, Columbia University, the American University of Beirut, the American College of Greece, and Library of Congress have provided prompt, thorough, and kindly assistance.
I am indebted to the more than 50 individuals who participated in the research project as interview subjects. Without their voices, Chapters 5 and 6 would not have been possible. Andrew Wachtel and Celeste Schenk let me be a fly on the wall of the AAICU annual meeting in 2017, which was a turning point in my research. Mary Merva subsequently provided me with valuable AAICU survey data. I am much obliged to them and the other meeting participants for welcoming me so warmly.