The program that came to bear his name has proven to be one of the most valuable investments in international cooperation and security the nations of the world have ever made. Its ethic of promoting tolerance, amity, peace, and stability among the peoples of the globe remains one of the generous ideals the United States has bequeathed to the world.
Senator Fulbright's idea was simplicity itself. Create a program, with the whole world as its stage, that would simultaneously encourage students from as many countries as possible to study in the United States while persuading young Americans to live in, and come to know and understand, Africa, Asia, Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific.
The program was originally financed by the sale of U.S. war surplus property, later also with U.S.-held foreign currencies from the sale of grain abroad, and by funds appropriated by the Congress. In the early years, the program largely depended on American enthusiasm; as a new century approaches, it draws its energy from 50 binational Fulbright commissions and educational institutions in every corner of the globe. Today, about 60 percent of the program's costs are covered by the government of the United States, with the rest coming from educational institutions, more than 40 governments of other nations, and the private sector. Now 21 of 50 partner nations match or exceed U.S. funding.
At 50, the Fulbright exchange program has matured into an international success story. From a modest program that brought 35 students and a single professor to the United States in 1948 and sent 65 Americans abroad, Fulbright has grown into a global celebration of our shared hopes for the future. Today some 4,400 grantees from the U.S. and 140 countries participate annually; over the decades, nearly a quarter of a million people have drawn on the benefits of the "Fulbright experience." No other program, with such modest expenditures (about $1.9 billion over 50 years), has brought so much worldwide credit and goodwill to the United States. And, as a steering committee member from Germany, Karl C. Roeloffs, reminded us, it is equally impossible to conceive of the American government being able to succeed without its ability to draw on the United States' unique system of higher education. American colleges and universities, with their commitment to access, intellectual rigor, creativity, and excellence, served as models for advancing learning elsewhere and in the process developed a global market for educational exchange.
The terms "Fulbright" and "Fulbright-Hays" cover a wide variety of programs: grants for American and foreign graduate students and graduating seniors; research awards for up to a year overseas for American and foreign scholars; lecturer awards; short-term faculty exchanges; efforts to bring public administrators to the United States; and programs to encourage exchanges of teachers and administrators, institutional linkages, the study of foreign languages, and doctoral and faculty research abroad (see Appendix C).
Fulbright involves nearly every conceivable discipline in the arts and humanities, commerce and finance, science and technology, education, journalism, media, and government. It counts among its alumni distinguished men and women in every walk of life, at home and abroad. They include poets and presidents, Nobel Laureates and syndicated columnists, artists and business leaders, economists, physicians, actors, playwrights, financiers, and cabinet officials (see Fulbright Alumni below).
Among the 250,000 men and women who have benefited from Senator Fulbright's inheritance, three typify its impact. The great American soprano, Anna Moffo, was the daughter of a Pennsylvania shoemaker; her career blossomed while she was studying in Italy. Whenever she was complimented on her striking voice and success, she liked to respond: "Most of all, I thank God for my Fulbright!"
Malaysian business leader Tan Sri Ani Arope, who had a Fulbright grant to study at the University of Vermont from 1964 to 1966, believed that "...the Fulbright experience left quite an impression on my outlook towards life. I realize today that I am more tolerant towards the many different races and religions in my own country because of my time in Vermont." And journalist Delin Cormeny, a Fulbrighter from Overland, Kansas, said of her experience in Zimbabwe in 1993, "Professionally, I've had a peek at the world from a different vantage point....This alone will carry me far in my career--a career aimed at communicating different perspectives and promoting fuller understanding of the political and cultural whys' and why-nots' in the world."
Whatever the field of study or profession of its recipients, the Fulbright experience has enlarged and deepened the perspective of potential national and international leaders. It has produced a cadre of pacesetters in the United States knowledgeable about, and sympathetic to, the aspirations of the peoples of the world. And in nation after nation, as Fulbright alumni have assumed the responsibilities of leadership, they have brought with them an appreciation of the values Americans hold dear.
|...educational exchange is essential to reducing international suspicion, encouraging mutual understanding, and advancing international cooperation.|
Thoughtful leaders, scholars, and diplomats have lavished praise on Senator Fulbright's legacy. The program has won the endorsement of 25 U.S. Congresses and ten Presidents and leaders around the globe. As noted historian Arnold Toynbee observed, the program is "one of the really generous and imaginative things that have been done in the world since World War II."
The many accomplishments of Fulbrighters around the world have fulfilled Senator Fulbright's hope to help preserve freedom. As the program approached its 20th anniversary in 1966, the Senator said that the aim of the program was "to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship."
That aim is no less worthy today as a new century approaches. Exciting new opportunities are opening up for Fulbright-and equally formidable challenges lie ahead. If the Fulbright program's second half century is to be as memorable as the first, it must continue to reshape itself to respond to the challenge of change.
The Fulbright program has beckoned many who went on to assume leadership roles in the arts and letters, science, medicine, education, business, communications, and government, here and in every corner of the globe. Among its distinguished alumni over the years, Fulbright counts those listed below, who have held or currently hold the positions noted. These individuals exemplify the innumerable contributors to international peace, freedom, and prosperity.
Maya Angelou - Poet
Michael Armacost - U.S. Ambassador to Japan; President, The Brookings Institution
Curtis Barnette - Chair/CEO, Bethlehem Steel Corporation
James Billington - Librarian of Congress
Derek Bok - President Emeritus, Harvard University
John Brademas - President Emeritus, New York University
Andrew Brimmer - President, Brimmer & Company
Hal Bruno - Political Director, ABC News
Dale Chihuly - Glass Artist
Sally Shelton Colby - Assistant Administrator, USAID
Henry Steele Commager - Historian
Aaron Copeland - Composer
Barbara Crossette - UN Bureau Chief, The New York Times
Michael R. Czinkota - Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Commerce
Rita Dove - Poet
John Hope Franklin - Historian, Duke University
Milton Friedman - Nobel Prize in Economics
Georgie Anne Geyer - Journalist
Maurizio Gianturco - Sr. Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company
Philip Glass - Composer
Nancy Graves - Sculptor
Hanna Gray - President Emeritus, University of Chicago
Israel Horowitz - Playwright
Stacey Keach - Actor
Joshua Lederberg - Nobel Prize in Medicine
Wassily Leontief - Nobel Prize in Economics
Lorin Maazel - Conductor
Anna Moffo - Leading Soprano, Metropolitan Opera
Daniel Patrick Moynihan - U.S. Senator
Leo J. O'Donovan, S.J. - President, Georgetown Univ.
Manuel Pacheco - President, University of Arizona
Alfred Partoll - Senior Vice President, AT&T
Philip Pearlstein - Painter
Thomas Pickering - U.S. Ambassador to Russia
Norman Podhoretz - Editor, Commentary magazine
Walt Rostow - Foreign policy advisor
Harrison Schmitt - Astronaut & Senator
Richard Serra - Sculptor
Emilio Segre - Nobel Prize in Physics
Roger Sessions - Composer
John R. Silber - Chancellor, Boston University
Ruth Simmons - President, Smith College
Wallace Stegner - Writer
Richard Thomas - Chair/CEO, First National Bank of Chicago
Charles H. Townes - Nobel Prize in Physics
John Updike - Writer
C. Garrick Utley - ABC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
Peter Viereck - Poet
Alberto Vitale - President/CEO, Random House, Inc.
Eudora Welty - Writer
Roslyn Yalow - Nobel Prize in Medicine
Chinua Achebe - Writer, Nigeria
Zaenal Arifin Achmady - Director General, Primary & Secondary Education, Indonesia
Tan Sri Ani Arope - Chair, Tenaga Nasional (National Energy Corp.), Malaysia
Shirani Bandaranayke - Supreme Court Justice, Sri Lanka
Aharon Barak - President, Supreme Court, Israel
Boutros Boutros-Ghali - UN Secretary-General, Egypt
Patricia Cardoso - Filmmaker, Colombia
Ruth Cardoso - First Lady of Brazil, Anthropologist, Brazil
Ingvar Carlsson - Prime Minister, Sweden
Gerhard Casper - President, Stanford University, Germany
Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz - Prime Minister, Poland
Francois-Xavier De Donnea - Mayor of Brussels, Belgium
Marilyn Duckworth - Writer, New Zealand
Umberto Eco - Writer, Italy
Abdul Aziz Abdul Ghani - Prime Minister, Yemen
Toru Hashimoto - Chairman, Fuji Bank, Japan
Alonso Blanco Herminio - Chief Negotiator, NAFTA, Mexico
Ana Griselda Hine - Artist, Costa Rica
Salma Khan - Divisional Chief, Women's Affairs, Ministry of Planning, Bangladesh
Shafik Ali El Khishen - Minister of Agriculture, UAR
A.M. Khusro - Editor-in-Chief, Financial Express, India
O-Ki Kwon - President, Daily News, Korea
Dominique Lapierre - Writer, Journalist, France
Teodoro A. Locsin - Editor-in-Chief, Philippine Free Press, Philippines
Jorge Martinez - Pianist, Paraguay
Prof. El Hadj Mbodj - President, Institute for Human Rights & Peace; Presidential Advisor, Senegal
Es'kia Mphahlele - Writer, South Africa
Hassan Mekouar - President, University Mohammed I, Morocco
Ole Myrvoll - Minister of Finance, Norway
Hilary B. Ng'weno - Editor-in-Chief, The Weekly Review, Kenya
Khalid Omari - Minister of Education, Jordan
Alfonso Ortega Urbina - Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicaragua
Carlos Ott - Architect, Uruguay
Krsto Papic - Film Director, Croatia
Velma Pollard - Dean, Faculty of Education, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Hargovinda S. Pradhan - Chair, Nepal Law Reform Commission, Nepal
Georg Reisch - Executive Secretary, European Free Trade Association, Austria
Sir Wallace Rowling - Prime Minister, Ambassador to U.S., New Zealand
Hernando Sanabria - Director-General of Education, Bolivia
Toger Seidenfeiden - President, Danish TV2, Denmark
Antonio Skarmeta - Writer, Chile
Javier Solana - Secretary-General of NATO, Spain
Alicia Steimberg - Writer, Argentina
Tamas Szecsko - Director, Institute of Public Opinion Research, Hungary
Baroness Shirley Williams - Politician, United Kingdom
Steering Committee | Executive Summary
Preface | FULBRIGHT AT FIFTY | Challenge of Change
Recommendations | Appendices