As the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War passed Sunday, University professors reminisced about their experiences as student protesters in the 1960s and discussed how they’re helping to improve the ties between the United States and the Communist state.
With a strong focus on education, Vietnam is trying to pull out of poverty with a little help from two University faculty members.
Ken Ramsing, a business professor, and Gerry Fry, director of the University’s Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, have participated in educational exchange programs with Vietnam and said that improvements are being made in the Southeast Asian country.
“Education is extremely important to the people of Vietnam,” said Ramsing, an international studies professor who has traveled to Vietnam four times since 1996. “But their universities are large, crowded and underfunded.”
As part of educational exchange groups, Fry has traveled to Vietnam six times, most recently in January when he taught at the country’s largest public university, Van Lang University in Ho Chi Minh City.
“I have been treated so well,” said Fry, a political science professor.
Reflecting on the war that accounted for deaths of three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans, Ramsing called it a “tremendous waste.”
The Vietnamese are trying to “put the war behind them and move on,” Ramsing said.

Being a protester

in a time of war
Philosophy Professor Cheyney Ryan, co-chairwoman of the University Committee on Peace Studies, strongly opposed the war as a student at Harvard College in the 1960s.
“We tried to disrupt the war-making capacity as much as we possibly could,” said Ryan, who was eventually expelled from the school for peaceful protests. “The thing I feel a lot more now than I did then is the utter pointlessness of the war. I tend to think now that the issues were all ones that could’ve been worked out if this country had not been so racist and imperialist toward that part of the world.”
Similarly, Fry protested the war as a student at Princeton University. After receiving his graduate degree in 1966, Fry joined the Peace Corps as a volunteer and headed to Thailand, where he recalls seeing American bombers taking off every eight minutes.
“We still don’t get it,” Fry said. “We need to better understand other countries.”
Because of the anti-war protests, the U.S. government changed its policy toward foreign affairs, Ryan said. Prior to military action now, federal officials make sure there is public support.
“The reason why the Vietnam War is one of the defining events of the second half of the 20th century is that it shifted the parameters — it made another Vietnam less likely,” Ryan said. “That’s due entirely to the anti-war movement.”
While Ryan attributes the end of the Vietnam conflict to the anti-war movement, he admits to being somewhat erratic at the time.
“You’re very brave when you’re 20; you think you’re invincible,” Ryan said. “In retrospect, this all looks kind of courageous, but it was really a function of stupidity. And I don’t know how my parents tolerated it.”
After 25 years of reflection, Ryan said many lessons can be learned from the longest war in American history.
“People of my generation have an obligation on the basis of what we’ve learned from the Vietnam experience to talk about it and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Ryan said.