Panama students at UA go from three in 2010 to 146 in 2016

FAYETTEVILLE — Panama, a country with an estimated population of 3.75 million, ranks behind only China — which has a population roughly 370 times as large — in the number of international students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, according to data from UA and the U.S. Census Bureau.

The university enrolled 146 Panamanian students in fall 2016, a sharp increase from three in fall 2010, according to information provided by UA to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Last fall UA enrolled 191 Chinese students and 1,469 total international students, who make up about 5 percent of all students.

Decades of outreach helped make possible a recent agreement with the Central American country’s science division to send scholarship students to UA, said Lynn Mosesso, the university’s director of graduate and international recruitment and admissions.

“As I tell the parents, the University of Arkansas has been in Panama since the early ’50s,” Mosesso said. A foreign agricultural mission to Panama took place in the early 1950s, while UA welcomed its first agriculture students from Panama in 1951, according to Amanda Cantu, a university spokesman.

The recent commitment from Panama came during the presidency of Ricardo Martinelli, a 1973 UA graduate who served a five-year term beginning in 2009, and after what university officials described in 2009 as an “academic trade mission,” with G. David Gearhart, at the time UA’s top leader, and others visiting Panama.

“I don’t know if that’s the reason we received the OK for our proposal,” Mosesso said of the chancellor’s visit. “They never said any of that. But it’s a very small country.”

Mosesso described outreach to UA from EducationUSA, a U.S. Department of State network of student advising centers, as helping start the recent upward surge in Panamanian students arriving in Fayetteville.

She said it was about 2010 when the call came asking if UA might be interested in enrolling four students from Panama who needed English language instruction.

Then, “a few of us were invited to talk to faculty, staff and administrators from various Panamanian universities, as well as government officials,” Mosesso said. A recruitment trip to Panama in early 2011 resulted in 19 students enrolling at UA, she said.

Talks also began around that time with Panama’s science division, known as SENACYT, that led to UA hosting a program known as the Pre-Academic Program for SENACYT Scholars. Cohorts mostly study science, engineering or business. Cantu said cohort sizes average around 20 students.

Ruben Berrocal, at the time the executive secretary of SENACYT, signed a May 28, 2012, commitment letter released to the Democrat-Gazette under the state’s public-disclosure law. The letter describes the program as “an important cornerstone of the relations between the University and us.”

Allegations of corruption, which have been leveled against Martinelli and members of his administration, also have been aimed at Berrocal, who is Martinelli’s cousin, said Ramon Arias, an attorney and chairman of a nongovernmental organization based in Panama that advocates against corruption.

Mosesso said she wants UA’s effort to stand on its merits, and noted that the country’s post-Martinelli administration has continued sending students.

She acknowledged that the university benefits financially through the government-sponsored students, though UA offers Panamanian students reduced tuition compared with out-of-state rates paid by many other international students.

But she said other UA students also benefit through open cultural events and a language program.

Since 1992, the earliest year with data immediately available, 131 Panamanians have earned degrees from UA, Cantu said.