February 2010
On her first trip to Bangladesh, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka and discussed “the need for increasing people-to-people contact as one of the ways to further strengthen the existing bilateral relations between the two countries,” the Bangladesh Awami League reported.
Many colleges with limited study abroad staff are beginning to draw on “faculty members’ experience living or working abroad.” The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on an increase in short-term, faculty-led study abroad programs, especially at schools with a smaller staff.
An increase in the number of adult students coming to Britain for “short courses” has left the British student visa system vulnerable to abuse by “economic migrants and those people with more dangerous intentions,” the Washington Post reports. Changes in the British visa system will take place immediately, to prevent people from “flouting the rules”:
A letter from Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Maura Pally appeared yesterday in the syndicated advice column Dear Amy. Pally’s letter came in response to a January 19 Dear Amy letter in which the writer alleged that a host parent has been involved in inappropriate behavior with teenage boys staying at his home, including international exchange students.
“Exchanges are a quintessentially American form of diplomacy that, if confirmed, I would hope to increase, to amplify, and to sustain in a lasting and meaningful way,” Ann Stock, nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, said during her confirmation hearing yesterday afternoon. Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Stock noted her previous professional involvement with exchanges (especially leading cultural and artistic exchanges while at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and expressed her belief in the importance of committing to “an effort—a sustained effort—to find common ground”:
“All sectors of American society and government are focused on this profound challenge and I believe exchanges are a key element. In exchanges, we rely on and engage our single greatest asset—the American citizen.”
The Obama administration’s FY 2011 budget, released on Monday, requested $58.5 billion for the entire international affairs budget (or 150 Account), representing a $6.1 billion (or 11.6 per cent) increase over total FY 2010 enacted international affairs spending. As the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition reports, nearly 60 per cent of this increase would go to “Frontline States,” including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, leaving a modest growth of $2.5 billion for all other international affairs programs. If enacted, the FY 2011 international affairs budget would be 2.8 per cent above actual FY 2010 amounts, including supplemental appropriations.
Dr. Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel Prize winning chemist, visited Cairo, Egypt earlier this month as the first U.S. Science Envoy “to discuss how the United States can work with Egypt to strengthen science and technology cooperation.” DipNote reports that while in Cairo, Dr. Zewail met with many top Egyptian officials, including the Prime Minister.
Foreign students, who “account for about 40% of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders working in the U.S.”, are staying in the U.S. following graduation in higher rates, the Wall Street Journal reports. “Stay rates” are “slightly higher than they have been in recent years,” especially following the post-9/11 slump in foreign students studying in the U.S.:
“Separate NSF surveys show the fraction of foreign Ph.D.s planning to stay in the U.S. dipped in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack and then rebounded. Nearly 80% of those with temporary visas surveyed in 2007 said they planned to stay; more than half had definite plans to do so.”
Department of State educational and cultural exchange programs received no funding increase in the President’s FY 2011 budget request, released this morning by the Office of Management and Budget. The President’s budget request makes $633.2 million available for exchange programs in FY 2011, slightly below the appropriation of $635 million for FY 2010.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair John Kerry (D-MA) and Ranking Member Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced on Friday the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 (see the full bill here). Described in a press release from Kerry and Lugar as “comprehensive bi-partisan legislation,” this authorization would “provide authority, policy guidance, and operational oversight to the State Department.”
