Senate Concurrent Resolution 7, 107th Congress

Sen. Lugar announced his and Sen. Kerry's intention to introduce the resolution at a breakfast meeting of members of NAFSA: Association of International Educators and the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange who participated in Congressional Education Day on Tuesday, January 30. More than 200 members of both organizations visited the offices of their congressional representatives later that day to urge congressional support for international education.

• Sen. Lugar's speech made at the breakfast
• Sen. Lugar's speech introducing the resolution on the Senate floor
• Sen. Kerry's floor statement

On February 1, 2001, Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the resolution in the U.S. Senate "expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should establish an international education policy to enhance national security and significantly further United States foreign policy and global competitiveness…."

The resolution, S.Con.Res. 7, states that such a policy should work to achieve the following outcomes:

1. Strengthen citizen and professional international exchanges and promote the exchange of scholars;
2. Streamline taxation, visa, and employment regulations impacting international students in the United States;
3. Significantly increase the number of U.S. students participating in study abroad;
4. Promote greater diversity of locations, subjects and languages involved in study abroad programs;
5. Ensure that U.S. college graduates have knowledge of a second language and a world area;
6. Strengthen the educational system through which Americans gain international expertise; and
7. Regain 40 percent of the market of internationally mobile students for the United States.

The co-sponsors of the resolution are Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), Zell Miller (D-Ga.), Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), and Paul D. Wellstone (D-Minn.)