Budget Debate Advances on Hill for FY12 - NAFSA Highlights Key Priorities for International Education

In the midst of the debt ceiling negotiations here in the United States, the FY 12 budget debate is also heating up, and there is a lot at stake for higher education and international education. We've already seen the United States Department of Education cancel the Fulbright-Hays international research programs (if you are a U.S. citizen and would like to electronically sign a petition to Save Fulbright-Hays Programs you can do so here) due to budget cuts.  The Department of Education also cancelled the Title VI American Overseas Research Centers (AORC) program (and you can electronically sign a petition to Restore Funding to American Overseas Research Centers here) due to the same budget cuts.  And, just last week The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to to eliminate The East-West Center.  According to the Chronicle, the legislation "would repeal a 1960 law that established the East-West Center, which allows American scholars, students, journalists, and government and business leaders to study, train, and conduct research with their counterparts from Asia and the Pacific. The nonprofit organization receives $21-million from the federal government and $10-million more from corporations, foundations, and other governments."


NAFSA: Association of International Educators is reporting today that CEO Marlene Johnson sent letters last week to key members of the House Appropriations Committee requesting their support in funding international activities in the Departments of State, Education and Commerce for FY 2012.  You can read Marlene Johnson's letters here.  NAFSA has also highlighted key international education priorities as the FY 2012 budget is debated in Washington, D.C. which you can read here.  If you haven't yet joined NAFSA's Connecting Our World at http://www.connectingourworld.org/ I strongly encourage you to do so and you can be a voice for international education.  There is more to Connecting Our World than just joining.  You must take action when necessary and NAFSA makes it so easy it will literally take 20 seconds of your day to let your elected officials in Washington know the importance of international education programming to the United States.


All of this really shouldn't be a surprise.  Back on October 28, 2010 I reported here on IHEC Blog that then Republican Senate Candidate for Pennsylvania Pat Toomey (now Senator Pat Toomey) had twice spoken on national media outlets as the November election neared about cutting funding and consolidating federal international educational exchange programs and funding (you can watch his interviews here).  We have still not fully recovered from one of the worst financial crises in the history of the United States and, to be sure, we need to make budget cuts across the board (including to international education programming) but it is critical that your voice be heard because you can imagine how Mr. Toomey will vote (and there are many more of his colleagues out there that feel the same about international education programs).


Across the Atlantic our friends over in Europe think a bit different about international exchange programs and according to EurActive.com "Europe's most celebrated student exchange programme is set to win a 71% funding increase under European Commission plans for the 2014-2020 budget, with education and training schemes now all regrouped under the Erasmus brand.  The education sector won the biggest percentage increase under the EU's long-term budget and is set to leap 71%, from €8.76 billion to €15.2 billion, for the period 2014-2020 under proposals submitted last week."


Photo credit:  Images_of_Money

Links of Interest from IHEC Blog's Facebook Page for Week of July 15th to 21st

My post today is the second installment of my new feature here on IHEC Blog which I started last Friday.  If you would like to follow along you can do so at http://www.facebook.com/IHECblog.  I hope you find some of the posts to be of interest and/or helpful to your work.


‎"How to Raise a Global Kid" [via Newsweek] at http://bit.ly/pcHBs4


House [U.S.] legislation would eliminate East-West Center and its academic exchange work: http://chroni.cl/osf6KE [via @GlobalChronicle on Twitter]


The first EAIE Admissions Officers & Credential Evaluators newsletterhttp://ow.ly/5HMea


‎"#THATintern: The study abroad intern" [via The Washington Post] athttp://wapo.st/oju48Q - I Love this!!!


"Language cuts endanger U.S." by Madeleine Albright and Chuck Hagel in USA Today at http://usat.ly/qAi8Ox


India and U.S. announce details of #highered summit to be held in October:http://t.co/RqApGWn [via @karinfischer on Twitter]


Looking for international education related blogs? If so you might want to check out my Internatinal Education Blogs & News site at http://bit.ly/lA6KRA. Have a blog to add?


The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a briefing paper on July 14th by Daniel Costa critical of the Department of State’s Exchange Visitor Program. A summary and the full briefing paper are available on EPI’s website at http://bit.ly/rduQUm. [via the Alliance Policy Monitor]


Evaluating & Measuring the Impact of Citizen Diplomacy: Current Status and Future Directions a @IIEglobal briefing paper http://bit.ly/oij5mE


The Coca-Cola Foundation awards grants totaling $1 million to six U.S. colleges and universities to send approximately 160 students to study abroad in China over the next four years in support of the U.S. State Department's "100,000 Strong Initiative." More at http://bit.ly/nclrN8


The Branch Campus Bubble? by Phil Altbach via Inside Higher Ed athttp://bit.ly/pPyZ4O


Parliamentary Secretary for Trade Justine Elliot has announced a new brand for Australia’s international education sector, "Future Unlimited". More athttp://bit.ly/oilew0


‎"HE internationalisation: why awareness of cultural conflict matters" [via The Guardian] at http://bit.ly/rniFyY


Photo credit: Calsidyrose

National Football League (NFL) Player Chad Lewis Highlights the Importance of Studying a Second Language

Chad Lewis is currently a player with the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League in the United States.  I came across this interesting video (below) on YouTube of Chad Lewis promoting the value of learning a second language, in his case the Chinese language, at BYU.  Lewis has been to China multiple times to represent the NFL and in 2002 took a three nation trip to Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand.  You can learn more about his travels here.  Nice to see such support for foreign language study and international education from an NFL player!

Video Message to Students Planning to Study in the United States this Year by David Donahue, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services

Text of Mr. Donahue available here.

Recent Links of Interest from IHEC Blog's Facebook Page

For my post today I'm simply going through IHEC Blog's Facebook page and copying and pasting various links that I think IHEC Blog readers may find of interest from the past week.  About one or two years ago I provided a weekly round-up of links of interest I pulled from my Twitter posts and this lasted for several months as was popular among readers so I thought I would try it out with Facebook posts.  Perhaps this will become a weekly (Friday) habit...


Virtual Student Foreign Service Expands International Opportunities for U.S. Students [via DopNote] at http://1.usa.gov/qTWfTr


University Research Corridor (URC) to launch Global Detroit International Student Retention Program. New Economy Initiative of Southeast Michigan awards three-year, $450,000 grant to harness talent, economic potential of foreign-born students at Michigan's colleges and universities. More at http://bit.ly/rlDxv7


LL.M. Roadmap: An International Student's Guide to U.S. Law School Programs (Aspen / Wolters Kluwer Law Publisher), 425 pages, release date July 2011http://www.LLMRoadMap.com/ (description copy and pasted from the @llmroadmap Twitter bio)


New Zealand's new international education agency will start operations with nearly double the budget of its predecessors, and with most of the increase directed to marketing. More at http://bit.ly/oVHYgl


Foreign Service Blogs [U.S.] at http://www.afsa.org/foreign_se​rvice_blogs.aspx


Who Is Global? [via Inside Higher Ed] at http://bit.ly/qeeG0w


"How often does it happen that we have a president of the United States who studied in Indonesia and a president of Indonesia who studied in the United States" quote by David Merrill, president of the U.S.-Indonesia Society (USINDO), in the May/June 2011 issue of International Educator, p. 34.


QR Codes - What are they? How can they be used to promote Study Abroad? [via The Study Abroad Connection] at http://bit.ly/orp4Im


Registration extended until July 22nd for Mobility International's "Linking Knowledge: a Disability Services and International Education Workshop" in Chicago on Thursday, August 11, 2011, 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. More information and registration available at http://bit.ly/pX9jt8


Information on the second Summit for Learning Abroad sponsored by the Learning Abroad Center and Global Programs and Strategy Alliance at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities available at http://bit.ly/fF5Ngr


"2 U.S. Agencies to Promote International Research on Problems of the Developing World" [via the Chronicle of Higher Education] at http://bit.ly/nuwfCB


Photo credit: tallpomlin

Changing types of posts here on IHEC Blog

If you have been following IHEC Blog for a while then you may have noticed changes in the way I have been posting.  IHEC Blog and my related activities are secondary to my family, employment and academic lives and things have gotten so busy over the past 6-12 months that I have had to change the way I post.  I still strive to post to IHEC Blog daily (Monday-Friday) but over the past several weeks I've managed only two to three posts per week.  What you will also notice is that I have been embedding much more video, documents and widgets into my posts with links to other resources than writing substantive pieces.  Of my last ten posts (not including this one) I have embedded five videos, one document and one twitter feed widget and the three other posts were short paragraph posts.  While these posts are less time intensive to prepare I do hope that they are informative and add some value to your work.  My current posting patterns will most likely continue for some time as I work to complete my dissertation.  About the dissertation...from July 18-29 I am taking off of work to focus on my dissertation and will probably not post anything (unless I write something this week and schedule to post or it is something I cut and discard from my dissertation that I think IHEC Blog readers may find of interest).  To that end, posts to IHEC Blog's Facebook page and to Twitter will also decrease substantially.


Thanks for coming along for the ride so far and I hope you continue!


Photo credit:  purpleslog (extra credit:  Do you know the name of or location of this clock?)

Darla Deardorff about the 2012 AIEA Annual Conference and Call for Proposals

You can learn more about the 2012 annual conference here.

Nominations needed for the Award for Innovative Research & Scholarship in Internationalization (a NAFSA TLS endeavor)

Nominations are still needed for the NAFSA TLS Award for Innovative Research and Scholarship in Internationalization! 

The nomination process is not too cumbersome -- it's easier than it looks. You just need to send a short statement to tlsaward@nafsa.org with an explanation of who you are nominating and why (make sure to emphasize theory to practice connections), as well as links or citations to relevant work. A one-page statement or even a long paragraph would be fine, as long as you state the case well. Full details can be found at here and the criteria is available here.