Uchicago Future Peace Corps Volunteers Facebook Group

Yesterday I decided to produce a week long series here on IHEC Blog focusing on internationalization in The College at The University of Chicago where I work.  As I was strolling through the halls of Harper Memorial Library looking for items to take pictures of I came across an interesting sign for the Peace Corps.  This wasn’t about an upcoming informational session/meeting for prospective students.  Rather, it was a sign for a new Facebook book called the Uchicago Future Peace Corps Volunteers Facebook Group.  The University of Chicago is consistently a top producer of Peace Corps Volunteers each year and I have posted to IHEC Blog about that in the past (read here).  I copied and pasted information about the group below:

 We are a group of students that are interested in community service, raising awareness about global issues, and providing knowledge and support for any member of the University who is interested in the Peace Corps. We hope to: 

*promote existing service opportunities for University students that are in line with Peace Corps values--meeting service needs and promoting better cross-cultural understanding--while also creating new opportunities to meet community deficits.

* provide all undergraduates with knowledge about the Corps as a post-graduation path, as well as the skills and resources necessary to become the best candidates for Peace Corps selection.

* reach out to current University of Chicago alums serving in the Peace Corps by grant writing and fundraising in support of their community service projects in order to promote a culture of global volunteerism.

I wonder what impact this Facebook group will have on the number of Peace Corps applicants from the University of Chicago?


Photo credit: http://davidcomp.wordpress.com/

Spreading of Colonial Influence Abroad via the Peace Corps

I recently came across an interesting article from March 12th written by Spencer Janyck in the WhitmanCollegePioneer entitled “The Peace Corps Spreads Colonial Influence Abroad”. Spencer writes “The United States has a long and sorbid history of colonization and destruction of other people and other ways of life that we have deemed “inappropriate” and “savage”…I see the Peace Corps largely as modern-day missionaries, taking up the civilized man’s burden and traveling abroad to teach others precisely what’s wrong with their societies.”

Just under two weeks ago I posted part of a promotional video from March 1961 of President Kennedy outlining the Peace Corps Program. The first time I watched/listened to the video I was taken aback by something the commentator said within the first 25 seconds of the video. Specifically, part of the video that stated “interest in President Kennedy’s proposed Peace Corps continues to rise among American youth. Here are the forerunners of the Peace Corps, American exchange students now overseas in backwards and depressed areas of the world…” made we stop to think “backwards in the eyes of whom?”

I fully support the Peace Corps and have blogged about it a few times on this blog. I wanted to post about this interesting view about the Peace Corps to see what IHEC Blog readers think. Where do you stand on the Peace Corps?

More Peace Corps

Today I’m posting twice on matters related to the Peace Corps. This second Peace Corps post is to bring attention to the More Peace Corps movement which is working to collect 25,000 signatures on a petition to support, actually remind, Barack Obama of his frequent pledge during the presidential campaign to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers. If you are in support of increasing the Peace Corps I encourage you to visit the More Peace Corps website to learn more about the movement and to sign the petition.

While navigating the website I came across a very interesting (and telling) statement from the January 13, 2009 article on the News & Events page entitled Two Hundred Peace Corps Volunteers to March in Inaugural Parade. The sentence follows:

“Representatives of the Peace Corps Community have applied for each Inaugural Parade in recent history and last participated in 1997.”

A clear statement of the Bush Administration position on citizen diplomacy on his very first day in office.

"Conversations" - A New Peace Corps Public Service Announcement

The Peace Corps recently produced this excellent PSA entitled "Conversations" about a returned Volunteer trying to explain his experiences to people that just don't understand.  Now, I was not a Peace Corps Volunteer so I can't relate with what I can only imagine is an awesome experience.  However, I think many study abroad students go through similar experiences upon their return home.  I know I had similar experiences after my two exchange program experiences to Rosenheim, Germany in high school and after my study abroad experience in Valladolid, Spain during college.  To be sure, my experiences in Germany and Spain were nothing like what a Peace Corps Volunteer experiences...



You can read more about this and other recent Peace Corps PSA's on the Peace Corps website here.

H.R. 1066 Peace Corps Expansion Act 2009

On February 13, 2009 Representative Sam Farr (CA-D) who is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer introduced the Peace Corps Expansion Act of 2009 (H.R. 1066) with 40 co-sponsors. Farr’s bill calls for $450 million to be budgeted in FY 2010 to support and expand the Peace Corps followed by $600 million for FY 2011 and $750 million in FY 2012.

Please see my previous post on the More Peace Corps movement and President Obama’s frequent campaign pledge to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers.

University of Chicago Top Producer of Peace Corps Volunteers for Second Consecutive Year

For the second consecutive year, the University of Chicago is the top producer of Peace Corps Volunteers for Small Colleges and Universities with 35. This accomplishment not only demonstrates the achievements made by Chicago students but also the global engagement of the students in their service and scholarship. The University of Chicago has also been very successful in recent years in the Fulbright U.S. Student Program with more students and alumni from the undergraduate College receiving Fulbright grants than the graduate students. You can read my previous blog post on the top producing institutions of Fulbright U.S. Student grants for 2008-2009 here.

The University of Washington (large college and university category) with 104 volunteers and George Washington University (medium college and university category) with 57 volunteers should also be congratulated on being the top Peace Corps Volunteer producers for their respective categories. You can download the 2009 Peace Corps statistics here.

Reestablishing The Peace Corps Program in Indonesia

During the February 5, 2009 daily press briefing at the U.S. Department of State, Robert Wood, Acting Spokesman, answered a question about Secretary Clinton’s interest in reestablishing the Peace Corps program in Indonesia (which was cancelled after two years of operation) by saying that this is something that she will be looking this possibility. This fits well with President Obama’s campaign pledge to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers.

March 1, 1961 - President Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps

On October 14, 1960 at 2:00am, Senator John F. Kennedy speaks to ~10,000 students at the University of Michigan proposes the idea of the Peace Corps. You can read more about this historic speech via the Founding Moment page of the Peace Corps website.  

You can listen to Kennedy's speech below:

Video of President Kennedy Outlining Peace Corps Program in March 1961

Many IHEC Blog readers know of my interest in the history of international exchanges and public diplomacy efforts. I came across the following YouTube video which is a partial newsreel of President Kennedy introducing the Peace Corps. I hope you find this video snippet interesting.




Please see my previous posts on the Peace Corps here.

Impact of International Affairs Budget on the 50 U.S. States Includes Study Abroad, International Student Economic Impact and Peace Corps Data

The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) has a great website with a list of the 50 U.S. states and by clicking on a state you can see what USGLC activities are taking place, find out the impact of the International Affairs Budget on a community and to learn how you can get involved. Both IIE Open Doors mentioning number of students studying abroad and economic impact of international students as well as Peace Corps data cited!

USGLC website available at http://bit.ly/2ne9c6W

Social Networks for International Educators

Over the past few months I’ve joined several social networks that are related to international education (at least the networks I’m eligible for as I’ve never received Fulbright funding or served as a Peace Corps Volunteer). At the moment I’m not very active in these social networks but I hope they lead to new connections and leads to valuable information that I might not otherwise come across in my other activities.

Following is a list of international education related social networks that I have found and if any IHEC Blog readers know of any other networks that are similar in nature please leave the name with link in the comments section of this post:

Study Abroad Alumni
http://studyabroadalumni.ning.com/

ExchangesConnect
http://connect.state.gov/

Green Passport Program
http://greenpassport.ning.com/

NAFSA Knowledge Communities & Discussion Forums
http://nafsa.org/knowledge_community_network.sec

Building Bridges Coalition

http://buildingbridgescoalition.ning.com/

The Global Education Collaborative
http://globaleducation.ning.com/

International Education Blogs (follow link below to list of blogs)
http://www.internationaleducationblogs.blogspot.com/

Fulbright Alumni
https://alumni.state.gov/fulbright

Connected Peace Corps
http://community.peacecorpsconnect.org/

Shared Futures (Updated Oct. 7, 2009)

http://sharedfutures.ning.com/

Additionally, there are several other social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook that have a heavy international educator presence with interesting content which may also prove to be valuable resources.

Those of you who couldn't attend the recent NAFSA conference or many of the sessions (if you were at the conference) might find the presentation Study Abroad in a Transparent World by Penny Schouten and Sarah McNitt to be of interest and value. You can access their Power Point presentation here.

For a related IHEC Blog post entitled "Study Abroad and International Education in the Twitterverse" please visit here.

Links of Interest for the Week of December 11th-17th

Due to me being out of commission much of this week due to the flu the links of interest this week is on the short side. Not as much time to be on The Twitter. I hope you find some of these to be of interest:

Global Engagement blog

IHEC Blog is listed as 100 Best Education Blogs by Certification Map

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program will be piloting a special Summer 2010 award cycle for students in the STEM fields

3% of total number of study abroad students were students with disabilities in 2007/08

Survival Strategies for Going Abroad: A Guide for People with Disabilities

Center for Science Diplomacy of the American Association for Advancement of Science

New @NAFSA paper: A Visa and Immigration Policy for the Brain-Circulation Era

The Franco-American Educational Exchange Network

Increase in foreign students good for economy (Otago, New Zealand)

Collection of all USATODAY.com coverage of Institute of International Education

The USA Football International Student Program

Senate gives final congressional approval to $400 million for Peace Corps (via @pcorpsconnect )

Smithsonian Journeys announces study abroad opportunity for HS students (via @acewlp)

Photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

Enhancements to International Education Blogs & News

Many people have discovered commented on my new blogging project International Education Blogs & News which I started a little under a month ago. Since the initial launch I’ve been making small enhancements to the site and I would like to highlight two here:

The first major enhancement to this site is a change in the name of the blog to International Education Blogs & News (IEB&N for short) as I felt this was more representative of what the blog provided to the field of international education. The second enhancement to the site are the Google news feeds on the left sidebar that cover the following topics:

Study Abroad
International Education
Educational Exchange
Peace Corps

Once on the International Education Blogs & News website you simply click the topic of interest and you'll be able to link to articles on the web found by Google on that topic. I will be adding more topics to this "Google News Roll" in the coming days and weeks but wanted to set up these initial news feeds as a pilot. Please provide comments on these enhancements to International Education Blogs & News and if you have or know of a blog that should be included please post a comment.

Google Alert - "international education"

I access and subscribe to many resources to keep up to date on the field of international education.  One of my favorites is "Google Alerts"!  The video I embedded in Monday's IHEC Blog post of Representative Dan Boren speaking on the House floor about the new NSEP African Languages Initiative was discovered via a Google Alert for the search term "National Security Education Program."


As a way of showing the value of Google Alerts I thought I would copy and paste one recent alert that contained a wealth of information.  Start receiving Google Alerts today at http://www.google.com/alerts.

Google Alert - "international education"

The State of Global Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed Citing data from the American Council on Education, the Modern Language Association and the Institute for International Education, the report concludes that ... See all stories on this topic »

Time for third-level to tune into growth potential in international students Irish Times ... world economies (based on the work of our religious orders and development agencies) we are ideally placed to become a hub for international education. ... See all stories on this topic »

Staying in touch The Age ... market will be under the microscope next week when more than 1000 experts meet in Sydney for the annual Australian International Education conference. ... See all stories on this topic »

A crash course in Football 101 Green Bay Press Gazette Listened to a lecture from Dr. Joe Tullbane, director of St. Norbert's Center for International Education, on "What is Football? — The Offense and Defense ... See all stories on this topic »

Faculty meeting focuses on curriculum growth The DePauw ... to appoint a group to examine globalization and internationalization issues at DePauw as suggested by the IEC (International Education Committee), ... See all stories on this topic »

Travelers aware, not worried by alert Fox11online.com The new alert may not be stopping people from packing their bags, but has made for a busy morning for Brent Blahnik, Director of International Education at ... See all stories on this topic »

International education funding for school counselors | #1 Student ... By admin There are many organizations that provide educational support for international students. NAFSA is one of the organization. It serves the field of. #1 Student Loan Center - http://studentloancenter.bestconsolidatingstudentloans.com/

Inside DFEEST: International education initiatives report released By DFEEST In producing their report, the Ministerial Taskforce brought together contributions from leaders within the international education sector, and also consulted widely in order to develop ideas to improve the experience of the ... Inside DFEEST - http://dfeest.blogspot.com/

AIEC QUEST Australian International Education By aiecquest Tourism Australia official website with information and pictures about travel in Australia, Queensland, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Great Barrier Reef. AIEC QUEST Australian International Education Centre ... AIEC QUEST Australian International... - http://aiecquest.wordpress.com/

General Information Session at International Education Week ... By webmaster@peacecorps.gov General Information Session at International Education Week. St. Marys College. 10/4/2010. Monday, October 4, Time: 11:00 am - 2:00 pm. Location: Conference Room in Campus Center RM. 228. If you are looking to truly become a global ... Peace Corps Events: Washington DC Region - http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=meet.regrec.washdc.revents

Three Radiologists Travel To Brazil Through International ... By admin Three Radiologists Travel To Brazil Through International Education Program. October 4, 2010 | Author: admin | Posted in Women's Health / Gynecology. Radiologists Donna G. Blankenbaker, M.D., from University of Wisconsin School of ... Drugrehab.in - http://drugrehab.in/

International Education Conference | The University of Chicago ... The 3rd annual International Education Conference is intended to provide K-12 teachers and administrators with information and concrete tools for ... event.uchicago.edu/maincampus/detail.php?guid=CAL...

Overview of Ohio's International Education Resources and ... international education summits. The first summit was held in 2007. ... the status ofinternational education efforts in Ohio and provide critical input to ... www.education.ohio.gov/GD/.../DocumentDownload.aspx?... Photo credit:  cambodia4kidsorg

Links of Interest for Week of September 19th to 25th

For the third consecutive Friday...following are various links I pulled from Twitter from this past week that I found of interest as well as some links I posted to Twitter that may be of interest to IHEC Blog readers.

WanderingEds profiles in international education - here's our interview with @davidcomp

China and India sending more students to Australia

Up With People has ‘impact' in host communities

Review of the Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act 2000, Issues Paper—September 2009

H.Res. 569: supporting citizen diplomacy, update on the U.S. Center for Ctizen Diplomacy's website

Got a great study abroad story? Share your story for the 2009 Student Diplomat Video Contest

Community colleges preparing for global economy by searching for new ways 2 study abroad

President John F. Kennedy Peace Corps Public Service Message

“Sizing Up the Competition: The Future of Int'l Postsecondary Student Enrollment in the U.S.”

American Diplomacy has a Facebook Page

Dorm Room Diplomacy group pairs Penn, Middle East college students

Japanese government proposes increasing number of foreign students in country to "300,000 by 2020"

U.S.-Russian Military-to-Military Links Set to Expand

FRANCE: Paris prepares for annual student invasion

U.S. Summit for Global Citizen Diplomacy - Will You Be There?

Over the weekend I registered for the upcoming U.S. Summit Global Citizen Diplomacy.  The early bird registration deadline for the Summit is October 15th.  


The Summit is scheduled to be held November 16-19, 2010 in Washington, D.C.  The goal of the Summit and ten year Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy is to double the number of American volunteers of all ages involved in international activities at home of abroad, from an estimated 60 million today to 120 million by 2020.  Summit Co-Chairs are David H. Roe, Ph.D., Chair of the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy and Judith McHale, U.S. Under-Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs.

A partial list of speakers follows:


PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (Invited); AMR BADR Managing Director, Egypt & Middle East, Abercrombie & Kent; KATHRYN C. BROWN Sr.VP, Public Policy Development & Corporate Responsibility, Verizon; VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN (Invited); JON CLIFTON Deputy Director, Gallup of the Gallup World Poll; THE HONORABLE HILLARY R. CLINTON U.S. Secretary of State (TBC); MARTIN DAVIDSON CMG Chief Executive, British Council, Joined by leaders from China, France, Japan, Poland and Turkey; NANCY DORN Vice President, Corporate Government Relations, General Electric; MARY JEAN EISENHOWER President & CEO, People to People International; MARY FLORES Former First Lady, Honduras; HARRIET M. FULBRIGHT President, J. William & Harriet Fulbright Center; THE HONORABLE JAMES LEACH Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities; STAN LITOW President & VP Corporate Citizenship, IBM Foundation; JUDITH MCHALE U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs; THE HONORABLE NORMAN Y. MINETA Vice Chairman, Hill & Knowlton; CAROLINE ROAN VP Corporate Philanthropy, Pfizer Inc. President, Pfizer Foundation; INGRED SAUNDERS JONES Senior VP, Global Community Connections, The Coca-Cola Company | Chairperson, The Coca-Cola Foundation; BARBARA STARR Pentagon Correspondent, CNN | Emmy Award Winning Producer; ANN STOCK Assistant Secretary of State, Educational & Cultural Affairs; THE HONORABLE THOMAS VILSACK U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (TBC); AARON S. WILLIAMS Director, Peace Corps; and, DOUGLAS B. WILSON Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.


You can learn more about the Summit on the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy website for the If you can't attend you can follow along on Twitter via the #citizendiplomacy hashtag or via a Twitter feed for the Summit here on IHEC Blog.

Live Stream of the White House Travel Bloggers Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship, December 9, 2014 #WHTravelBloggers

This morning I learned via Twitter that the White House in collaboration with Hostelling International USA is hosting the first White House Travel Bloggers Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship today.  You can learn more about the Summit via the HI-USA News webpage at http://bit.ly/1w9mQ9x and this blog post by HI-USA CEO Russ Hedge at http://bit.ly/1s92a1S.  As the title of the Summit suggests, invited participants are the top 100 travel bloggers and digital influencers.

Based on my limited available time to fully research this event it seems that the National Security Council may have played a significant role in planning the event.  The Summit will stream live via the White House Live Events page at http://1.usa.gov/1w9sOHo at 2:15pm EST.

Speakers include:

Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce, Department of Commerce

Denis McDonough, Chief of Staff, The White House

Benjamin Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, National Security Council

Evan Ryan, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), Department of State

Carrie Hessler-Radelet, Director, Peace Corps

Daniela Kaisth, Vice President, External Affairs and IIE Initiatives, Institute of International Education

Alex Montoya, Alumnus, Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship Program

Angel Cabrera, President, George Mason University

Samantha Brown, Host, Travel Channel

Don Wildman, Host, Travel Channel

Robert Reid, Digital Nomad, National Geographic

Robin Goldberg, Chief Experience Officer, Minerva Project

James Howard, National iHeartRadio Brand Coordinator, iHeartMedia

If you wish to follow along via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook you can do so via #WHTravelBloggers.

#WHtravelbloggers Tweets

I'll be posting this in a few moments over on SECUSS-L for two reasons:  

First - to inform everyone about this event as it seems to have not have made it to the larger study abroad community.  Kudos to @CIEEstudyabroad for engaging via Twitter to see if any of their alumni, and possible travel bloggers, are attending the Summit!

Second - to possibly generate some discussion within the SECUSS-L community about the Summit.

While I haven't come across the complete list of 100 travel bloggers attending the Summit I posit that very few (if any) are Study Abroad professionals and aside from Evan Ryan of ECA and Daniela Kaisth of IIE it appears that the international educator voice is missing from such an important Summit on Study Abroad and Global Citizenship hosted by the White House!  Perhaps that is a good thing?  Your thoughts?

Cultural Exchange or American Dominance?

Part of the description of IHEC Blog states “from time to time, International Higher Education Consulting Blog will post thought provoking pieces to challenge readers and to encourage comments and professional dialogue” and I hope that this post meets this criteria so here goes it…

I came across an interesting article over lunch entitled “Is $120 Million Study Abroad Bill About Cultural Exchange or American Dominance?” which was posted yesterday to MatadorAbroad.com. I think the author, Sarah Menkedick, raises some interesting/important points that are worthy of discussion here on IHEC Blog.

What’s your take on the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act? Is it about cultural exchange or American dominance or is it a little bit of both?

Here is a video of Senator Paul Simon from November 13, 2003 (a few weeks before his untimely death) announcing his vision of the Abraham Lincoln Study Abroad Fellowship Program:



I plan to post more to IHEC Blog about sending one million students abroad in the near future. I leave you with this thought I have; if the United States does reach the goal of sending one million students abroad I wonder how many more “Itaewon” type areas will be established across the globe?

This post is related to a similar to a March 30, 2009 IHEC Blog post entitled “Spreading of Colonial Influence Abroad via the Peace Corps” which you can read and comment on here.

This is the fifth Friday that I’m posting to IHEC Blog with links of interest I’ve pulled off of Twitter this past week. I’ve changed the title and focus of this weekly post slightly…I hope you find some of these links of interest. As always, topics/titles are live links so please click away!

GlobaLinks NewsWire to participate in Blog Action Day 2009

Record number of applications received! (via @GilmanProgram)

Nat'l Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (abroad); up to $30K/year (via @uhhglobe)

"International students could pay off Australia's debt, says Bernard Salt"

What are you doing for International Education Week, November 16-20, 2009?

"US voices concern over Turkmenistan’s bid to stop students traveling to foreign universities"

"Exchange We Can Believe In"

International Student Travel Video Contest 2009

Dissertations relating to Peace Corps (via @

PeaceCorpsWiki)

Thinking global: Victoria's action plan for international education [September 2009] (via @IDPDRIE)

Complete information on the Fulbright-Hays Fellowship Programs (via @

CitizenDiplomat)

Interested in teaching for global justice or international education? check out AAC&U's social network (via @sharedfutures)

Study abroad isn't just for foreign language students (via @pdxnicolle)

International 'Leapfrogging'

You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidComp