Press Room
Letter to the Christian Science Monitor
June 12, 2008
Letters to the Editor
The Christian Science Monitor
210 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston MA 02115
To the Editor:
"Send More U.S. Students Abroad" by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (op-ed June 12) could not have been more welcome. America cannot be secure in—much less effectively lead—a world that it does not understand or know how to listen to. Yet Americans by and large lack international, foreign-language, and cross-cultural knowledge, and have a difficult time understanding that other people have their own aspirations, priorities, and world views.
To rectify what the op-ed correctly calls this "national liability," the United States requires a national policy to ensure that many more Americans have the opportunity to live and learn in other cultures as part of their college education - opportunities that allow them to acquire needed skills in communicating with and understanding other cultures and languages. The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act would create and fund such a policy.
Study abroad is a life-changing experience, yet relatively few share in it. It is time to make this experience the routine, not the exception, in U.S. higher education.
Victor C. Johnson
Senior Advisor, Public Policy
NAFSA: Association of International Educators
Letters to the Editor
The Christian Science Monitor
210 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston MA 02115
To the Editor:
"Send More U.S. Students Abroad" by Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (op-ed June 12) could not have been more welcome. America cannot be secure in—much less effectively lead—a world that it does not understand or know how to listen to. Yet Americans by and large lack international, foreign-language, and cross-cultural knowledge, and have a difficult time understanding that other people have their own aspirations, priorities, and world views.
To rectify what the op-ed correctly calls this "national liability," the United States requires a national policy to ensure that many more Americans have the opportunity to live and learn in other cultures as part of their college education - opportunities that allow them to acquire needed skills in communicating with and understanding other cultures and languages. The Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act would create and fund such a policy.
Study abroad is a life-changing experience, yet relatively few share in it. It is time to make this experience the routine, not the exception, in U.S. higher education.
Victor C. Johnson
Senior Advisor, Public Policy
NAFSA: Association of International Educators
