FULLBRIGHT EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM MARKS 60TH ANNIVERSARY
Educational exchanges seen increasing global understanding
Washington -- In her statement on International Education Week 2006,Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called attention to the 60thanniversary of the Fulbright Program, describing it as the "flagship
international exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government."
"With a mandate to promote mutual understanding, the Fulbright Program exemplifies the power of international education," she said in the
November 3 statement.
The driving force behind the program -- today a family of organized international exchange initiatives -- was J. William Fulbright of
Arkansas. As the nation's youngest university president during the time he led the University of Arkansas (1939-1941), Fulbright observed
firsthand how young people living, playing and studying together transcend their differences and build strong friendships grounded in
mutual understanding.
Elected to the House of Representatives in 1942 and the Senate two years later, Fulbright worked to expand his original insight to the
international arena. As World War II ended in 1945, he observed that the Treasury was receiving payments from other nations for surplus U.S.
property left overseas. He introduced legislation to use those funds for the "promotion of international good will through the exchange of
students in the fields of education, culture and science." On August 1, 1946, President Harry S. Truman signed the bill into law, and by 1948
the first American participants were studying overseas.
Subsequent legislation, including most notably the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, expanded and consolidated the program. Today, the Fulbright
Program awards about 4,500 grants annually, in some 140 countries. It has awarded grants to more than 250,000 individuals, three-fifths of
them non-Americans, and boasts of 35 Nobel Prize-winning alumni -- more than any other academic program -- and 65 winners of the Pulitzer Prize,
awarded for achievement in print journalism, literary works and music.
In the year 2001 alone, one Fulbright alumnus (Alejandro Toledo) was elected president of Peru and others were appointed foreign ministers in
Brazil, Poland and South Korea. That same year, two American Fulbright participants shared the Nobel Prize in economics while others won the
Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, the National Book Award in fiction and the Grammy (awarded for recoded music) for classical
contemporary composition. Scor es of other program alumni have contributed to their societies and cultivated global understanding
through government service, teaching and scholarship and achievements in the arts and in nearly every walk of life.
DIFFERENT FULBRIGHT PROGRAMS
The "Fulbright Program for U.S. Students" awards grants that afford recent college graduates and master's or doctoral candidates the
opportunity to study, perform independent or field research, or gain teaching assistantship experience overseas. They meet, work and share
daily life with residents of their host countries.
The "Fulbright for Non-U.S. Students" arranges placement in U.S. academic institutions for more than 1,300 "Foreign Fulbright Fellows"
each year. These graduate students and developing professionals and artists interact freely with Americans, contributing to an atmosphere of
openness, academic integrity, and intellectual freedom.
Fulbright opportunities do not end at graduation. Each year, some 800 faculty and professionals from around the world receive "Fulbright
Scholar Program" grants for advanced research and university lecturing in the United States. A "Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange
Program" allows U.S. and foreign teachers to exchange places for a semester or an academic year. Students are exposed to different points
of view, and teachers return home with a more global perspective.
In J. William Fulbright's words, the program "aims to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason and a little more compassion into
world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship."
NOT JUST A U.S. PROGRAM
With the growth of Fulbright exchanges, responsibility for selecting and funding participants has expanded beyond the United States. The
Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs administers the overall program, in cooperation with a number of
nonprofit organizations and 50 binational "Fulbright Commissions."
Each commission contains an equal number of U.S. and foreign nationals and is funded jointly by the United States and a host foreign
government. It receives exchange requests from local institutions and proposes an annual country program, setting the numbers and categories
of Fulbright grants for that nation. (In countries without a commission, the public affairs section of the U.S. Embassy develops and supervises
the Fulbright Program.) In this way, programs are tailored to meet the needs of all participating nations.
For President Bill Clinton, speaking in 1996 on the program's 50th anniversary, fellow Arkansan Fulbright "gave the gift of understanding
that the only way to lasting peace is for people to understand one another -- the simple act of giving and receiving the best that each of
us has to offer. ... [T]he Fulbright Program has stood as a proud symbol of our nation's fundamental commitment to that ideal."
That commitment continues. In 1976, Bangladeshi Fulbright participant Mohammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank to provide collateral-free
microcredit to his nation's rural poor. In 2006, Yunus received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. "Fulbright provided me the bridge to
cross. I saw how things can be done differently in a different society.
I learned lessons which stood me in good stead when building up the Grameen Bank," he said.
Additional information http://exchanges.state.gov/education/fulbright/
about the Fulbright Program, Rice's November 3 statement
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/75520.htm and biographical
information http://exchanges.state.gov/education/fulbright/fulbbio.htm
on J. William Fulbright are available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
Noor T. Umarov
Information Assistant
U.S. Embassy
109A Ismoili Somoni Ave.
Dushanbe, Tajikistan
cell: (992-93) 570-70-38
phone: (992-37) 229-23-58
email: UmarovNT@state.gov
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