In a recent letter to the New York Times editor, Maura Pally, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State Department, thanks Nicolas Kristof for his vision of a “Teach for the World” program:

As part of its ‘roadmap’ to strengthening U.S. public diplomacy, the State Department plans to create seven new senior positions, the Washington Times emphasized in its report of last week’s Senate hearing that featured testimony by four Under Secretaries of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (see Alliance report).

In recognition of the impact a lagging travel sector has on the overall economy, Congress recently passed, and sent to the President for signature, the Travel Promotion Act. The Act aims to educate travelers on U.S security procedures and requires a $10 fee from visa-waiver travelers to the United States, which will help fund a travel promotion campaign—a first for the U.S.

In an op-ed piece today, New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof proposes a new program that would combine the foundations of Teach for America and the Peace Corps.

In a Washington Post Letter to the Editor published yesterday, Maura Pally, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, discusses a growing trend in U.S. students’ interest in Russia and the Russian language. She states that “[b]oth trends bode well for U.S. engagement in the world because foreign language skills and the inter-cultural awareness they bring pave the way for mutual understanding and better relations.”

The Voice of America filed a report recently on Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale’s February trip to Bangladesh (covered previously by the Alliance).

Japan announced plans to standardize student-evaluation methods with universities in China and South Korea, in a “possible first step toward a pan-Asian student-exchange program,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported last week.

Japan's ministry of education says the plan will make it easier for students in Asia's three largest higher-education markets to study abroad.

The new $10 fee to be levied on visitors to the United States from 35 European and Asian visa-waiver countries (see previous Alliance coverage of the Travel Promotion Act) will cover a traveler for two years and could produce as much as $100-200 million a year to help fund a corporation to promote the United States as a tourist destination, the LA Times reports.

An alumna of Lake Forest College in Chicago, Grace Groner, bequeathed $7 million to her alma mater to start a “foundation to allow students to study abroad,” ABC News reported. Groner was a “secret millionaire,” as few knew about her fortune that grew from three shares of stock in Abbott Laboratories, her former employer, bought at only $60 a piece.

Watch the brief ABC News report: 

Sher Bano, a 17-year-old Pashtun Pakistani participant in the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Program in Evanston, IL, used her exchange experience in the United States as an opportunity to increase cross-cultural communication and understanding:

One of my American friends once asked me if I traveled by camel in Pakistan. Needless to say, my answer was no. But Americans should know more about life in Pakistan than just this. Pakistanis as a whole are democratic, progressive and mostly secular in their attitudes.