Franz Strasser, a digital reporter for BBC World News America and originally from Germany, files a video report about his return to Mayo, Florida, where he spent the 2001-02 school year as a high school exchange student living with the Gresham family. For the Greshams, hosting an exchange student was not only about broadening their horizons, but also about adding another member to their family.

In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Wendy Williamson, director of study abroad at Eastern Illinois University, tackles the question of why as few as 1.5 per cent of college students travel overseas to study every year. She cites a 2008 report by the American Council on Education and the College Board to find a reply:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this week titled “Engaging Foreign Audiences: Assessment of Public Diplomacy Platforms Could Help Improve State Department Plans to Expand Engagement.” The report recommends that the Secretary of State and the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs “conduct an assessment of the relative effectiveness of each of State’s overseas outreach platforms, such as by measuring how each platform has expanded engagement with foreign audiences.”

“If you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head,” Nelson Mandela once said. “If you speak to him in his own language, you speak to his heart.”