My "Global Thoughts" talk with Tom Millington of Abroadia on National Security and International Education from September 15, 2020

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Live Streaming Now: Student Visa Integrity: Protecting Educational Opportunity and National Security

Live Streaming just started 2:45pm EST

Student Visa Integrity: Protecting Educational Opportunity and National Security
Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration
DATE: Wednesday, June 6, 2018
TIME: 02:30 PM
LOCATION: Dirksen Senate Office Building 226
PRESIDING: Senator Cornyn
http://bit.ly/2Jgbj6Q

Council on Foreign Relations Discussion - "Link Between Foreign Languages and U.S. National Security"

On Wednesday, June 14, 2017, the Council on Foreign Relations streamed live a very important and informative discussion entitled Link Between Foreign Languages and U.S. National Security.  The Council on Foreign Relations has made the video recording of that discussion available on their YouTube channel and it is embedded below.

The discussion panel was made up of the following individuals:

Martha "Marty" Abbott
Executive Director, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages; Executive Director, Lead With Languages

Esther Brimmer
Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, NAFSA: Association of International Educators; Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Michael Nugent
Director, Defense Language and National Security Education Office, U.S. Department of Defense

Presider

Sanford J. Ungar
Director, The Free Speech Project, Georgetown University

Public Diplomacy and U.S. National Security for the New Administration in 2017 - A New CSIS Report and Related Conversation with Benjamin Rhodes and James Glassman

On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) released a new report entitled Public Diplomacy and National Security in 2017: Building Alliances, Fighting Extremism, and Dispelling Disinformation by Katherine Brown, Shannon Green and Jian "Jay" Wang.

CSIS also hosted a discussion later in the day entitled Public Diplomacy and National Security: Lessons Learned for the Next Administration (video and audio available) that featured Benjamin Rhodes Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting [Obama Administration], and James K. Glassman, former Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs [George W. Bush Administration].

Video from the Rhodes and Glassman CSIS conversation is embedded below:

A Note of Thanks to Everyone Who Helped Me with my Dissertation

As this blog posts here on IHEC Blog I am participating in commencement at Loyola University Chicago and will receive my Doctorate in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, Comparative and International Education.  It was a long nine years to complete this degree and there are many to thank and I wish to specifically thank everyone who helped me with my dissertation and those acknowledgements follow:

THE NATIONAL SECURITY EDUCATION PROGRAM AND ITS SERVICE REQUIREMENT:  AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF WHAT AREAS OF GOVERNMENT AND FOR WHAT DURATION NATIONAL SECURITY EDUCATION PROGRAM RECIPIENTS HAVE WORKED

I would like to acknowledge everyone who has assisted me throughout my doctoral studies over the years.  I would first like to acknowledge my adviser, Dr. Noah Sobe, for agreeing to serve as my adviser and for his patience and feedback during the many courses I took with him and as I completed my dissertation.  Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Robert Roemer and Dr. David Ensminger for agreeing to serve on my dissertation committee.  I truly appreciate all of their time and assistance as I navigated this process!

A very special thanks is due to my friend and colleague Dr. Kevin Gormley at the National Security Education Program for his encouragement dating back to a lunch meeting in Los Angeles in 2009 to our phone conversations and e-mail communications throughout 2010 and 2011 about my project.  This dissertation would not have been possible without Kevin’s support and assistance!  I also wish to thank the many staff members at the National Security Education Program including Dr. Michael Nugent, Judy Collier, Roy Savoy, Katie Davis, Alison Patz, and Stuart Karaffa for their approval of my project, their time in reviewing my survey instrument and providing valuable feedback at our meeting back in November 2010 and their assistance in launching my survey instrument.  I also wish to thank Genie Lomize, Treasurer of the Boren Forum, and Dr. Philip Lyon, Former Executive Director of the Boren Forum, for their support of my dissertation and for Dr. Lyon’s continued support and time to meet at the National Security Education Program Office in November 2010 to review and provide feedback on my survey instrument.  A note of thanks is also due to Christopher Powers, Director of the Boren Awards for International Study at the Institute of International Education for answering my e-mail questions about historical program dates.  I hope that the National Security Education Program, the Boren Awards for International Study and the Boren Forum will find some value in the results of my dissertation.

I also want to thank all of the National Security Education Program Alumni (Boren Scholars and Boren Fellows) who took time out of their busy schedules to complete my survey instrument!

Additional gratitude is offered to many colleagues in the field of international education who provided resources and feedback as I worked on my dissertation.  This list of individuals includes the following:  Dr. Gary Rhodes and Dr. Miloni Gandhi from the Center for Global Education at the University of California, Los Angeles for taking time out of their busy schedules to review and provide feedback on my dissertation proposal and survey instrument; Mickey Slind for sending me her personal collection of primary documents related to the early years of the National Security Education Program (they will always have a home in Bury Book International Education Library & Archive); Elizabeth Mandeville for sending me a valuable  primary document pertaining to the early years of the National Security Education program; Stephanie Kirmer for taking the time out of her schedule to meet with me and provide a statistics tutorial and for lending me one of her publications as I worked on the data analysis portion of my dissertation; Kyle Flynn for helping me better understand the statistical analysis of my results; and, Dr. Louis Berends for his friendship and support throughout our studies and time at Loyola University Chicago and beyond.

Further acknowledgement and thanks is due to my supervisor Christine Gramhofer at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Her support for time off to work to research and write my dissertation was truly helpful and greatly appreciated!

Thank you to my mother Vicky and Sam, father Jim and Mary Ellen, and my mother and father-in-law Therese y Don Carlos for their encouragement and continued support over the years and their enthusiasm as I neared my goal.

Finally, but most importantly, I wish to thank my wife Ana and children Gabriela, Andrés y Lucas for their patience, assistance, support and faith in me.  The nights away from the family while attending classes and the days and nights away from them while writing my comprehensive exams and, in particular, this dissertation were truly difficult.

I could not have completed my research without the support of all these wonderful people!

ABSTRACT - "The National Security Education Program and its Service Requirement: An Exploratory Study of what Areas of Government and for What Duration National Security Education Program Recipients Have Worked" a Dissertation by David Comp, 2013

If you are interested in reading my dissertation and are unable to locate it electronically then please feel free to e-mail me and I will send it to you as an e-mail attachment.

The National Security Education Program celebrates 20 years

On September 8, 2011 the National Security Education Program (NSEP) celebrated 20 years in Washington, D.C. with the author of the 1991 legislation Senator David L. Boren, currently President of the University of Oklahoma, in attendance.  At the celebration, Senator Boren and Dr. Clifford Stanley, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, addressed the Boren Fellows, Scholars, members of the NSEP Board as well as other lucky international educators and stakeholders in attendance.  

Following is an excellent video (11:12) of interview snippets with Senator Boren, Under Secretary Stanley, former Boren Scholars and Fellows as well as those in the federal government who employ Boren Scholars and Fellows.  

You can learn more about the Boren Awards for International Study at http://www.borenawards.org/ and the National Security Education Program at http://nsep.gov/.


Two days prior to this 20th anniversary celebration, on September 6, 2011, I started a new job at Chicago Booth (The Business School at The University of Chicago) as the Associate Director for International Programs.  I am very excited and fortunate to have landed this new position but I must admit I will miss much of my previous work as the Senior Adviser for International Initiatives in The College and as Assistant Director in The Office of International Affairs, both at The University of Chicago.  In particular, for the past eleven years I served as the Fulbright Program Adviser for the U.S. Student Program and as the Campus Representative for the Boren Awards for International Study/NSEP and it is the advising of prospective applicants to both of these Fellowship/Scholarship competitions that I will truly miss.  I must confess that my favorite group to work with has been the Boren/NSEP applicants as this is a small, select and focused group of young women and men.  I like the Boren /NSEP program so much that I am focusing my dissertation research on the service requirement component of the program.  The early history of the program is very fascinating, on many levels, and one that all students of international education should be familiar with (in my opinion) and that history will also be part of my dissertation.  I got caught up in an end of summer slump on the dissertation front and this 20 year celebration of the NSEP has certainly been a motivator for me!  More on all of that at at a later time...

Frameworks for Higher Education in Homeland Security

During my research activities last night I came across an interesting report entitled Frameworks for Higher Education in Homeland Security (2005) the Committee on Educational Paradigms for Homeland Security, Policy and Global Affairs of the National Research Council and available for reading on the National Academies Press website.  It's an easy and quick read (68 pages) and of particular interest to me, and perhaps many IHEC Blog readers, is chapter/section four entitled "Parallels Between Homeland Security and Area Studies, International Relations, and Science Policy" (pages 9-14) which discusses the National Security Education Program among other matters.  Just thought I would mention this report and highlight that you can access it for free.  Click on the book cover below to be taken to the website.

The National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) Pipeline

Back in January, 2006 then-President George W. Bush announced the launch of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) with the Secretaries of State, Education and Defense along with the Director of National Intelligence coordinating this national effort to dramatically increase the learning, speaking and teaching skills of U.S. citizens in foreign languages deemed critical to U.S. national security. 

The NSLI is a “long-term investment in the nation’s critical foreign language learning capabilities and competencies” working to accomplish the following three goals[1]:

1.      Increase the number of U.S. residents studying critical-need languages and starting them at an earlier age;

2.      Increase the number of advanced-level speakers of foreign languages, with an emphasis on mastery of critical-need languages; and

3.      Increase the number of teachers of critical-need languages and providing resources for them.

The following figure provides a great visual of the National Security Language Initiative Pipeline and the various programs that are available for critical language learners.[2]

Those of you who are interested in learning more about NSLI and the preliminary results of the program will want to download the following report:

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Enhancing Foreign Language Proficiency in the United States: Preliminary Results of the National Security Language Initiative, Washington, D.C., 2008.

Related IHEC Blog posts:

National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y)

The Language Flagship – Statements Before the House Armed Services Committee

Project Go – The ROTC Language & Culture Project

Cross-Cultural Awareness in the U.S. Military

Towards a More Cross-Culturally Competent United States Air Force

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[1] U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Enhancing Foreign Language Proficiency in the United States: Preliminary Results of the National Security Language Initiative, Washington, D.C., 2008, 1.

[2] Diagram of the “National Security Language Initiative Pipeline” obtained from Ibid., 2.

Video of the Week - Breaking the Language Barrier

For this video of the week I have selected this video from the National Security Education Program (NSEP) which has become a new research interest of mine (more on this in a future post).  What I like about this video is that it starts and ends with an interview with David L. Boren who is a former Senator from Oklahoma and author of the National Security Education Act of 1991 (which created the NSEP) followed by interviews with three former NSEP recipients who describe their studies abroad as well as their career paths in the U.S. Federal Government as part of their service requirement.

You can learn more about the National Security Education Program here and the Boren Awards for International Study here.

Two Brief Notes of Sadness on Matters Related to International Education

On this first work day of the new year my inbox has filled with Google Alerts linking to articles on two important issues related to international education. In case you are busy and haven’t been able to follow the news:

1. Sad news out of Australia is that a twenty-one year old student from India was stabbed and killed in a park over the weekend while walking to work in Melbourne. You can read more about the incident and the ripple effects here. Violence against Indian students in Australia was a very hot topic in 2009 in both India and Australia. On July 15th I asked on IHEC Blog “has the recent violence against Indian students in Australia had an effect on Indian American students’ decision to study abroad in Australia?” which you can read here.

2. The aftermath of the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a Delta Airlines flight to Detroit has set in motion new and intense screening procedures at airports worldwide for citizens from 14 nations. Citizens from the four “state sponsors of terrorism” and nine “countries of interest” will now be required to “undergo full-body pat downs and will face extra scrutiny of their carry-on bags before they can board planes to the United States. In some countries that have more advanced screening equipment, travelers will also be required to pass through so-called whole-body scanners that can look beneath clothing for hidden explosives or weapons, or may be checked with a device that can find tiny traces of explosives.”[1] You can read more about these new security measures here.

These two issues will no doubt effect international education exchange in Australia, India and the United States.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/us/04webtsa.html

National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y)

I briefly touched on the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) in a previous post but wanted to come back to discuss the program with this post. While cultural and educational exchanges have been a part of the U.S. secondary school landscape for decades the NSLI-Y, which was started in January 2006 as part of the larger National Security Language Initiative, not only provides an opportunity to infuse mutual understanding and foreign language competency into internationally engage secondary students but it is also a way for the U.S. Government to begin the recruitment process for internationally competent and fluent employees who understand and speak such critical languages as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Hindi, Korean, Russian and Turkish and understand the people and cultures of these languages (see my previous post on this).

Those of you who are interested in learning more about the NSLI might find the following report Enhancing Foreign Language Proficiency in the United States: Preliminary Results of the National Security Language Initiative (2008) by the U.S. Department of Education to be of interest.