German university rents out little American ambassadors

What’s your name? Where are you from? Did you vote for Bush?

ANDREAS RENTZ/Getty Images News

That’s how one American student studying in Germany describes the start of a typical conversation with a German student. With anti-U.S. sentiment at an all-time high in Germany (as you might be able to tell from the picture at left), many American college students complain that they’ve become unofficial ambassadors for the United States, forced to justify Washington’s every policy move.

To cool tensions down, the German-American Institute at the University of Tübingen launched a program called “Rent an American.” American college students visit high schools. They bring photos of their lives back home and talk about the United States. They answer students’ tough questions about Bush, war, the death penalty, and climate change. It helps that most American students in Germany seem to oppose Bush—it’s not clear how this program would work if red-state Republicans had to answer students’ pointed questions.

At the very least, the program shows German teens that a substantial fraction of Americans aren’t blind followers of their president. And for the exchange students, it’s a rude awakening to what studying abroad is all about.