Annan, Kofi
U.N. Secretary-General
United Nations

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"Whether in contributing to the training of teachers, scientists and engineers, advancing the role of women in development, or administering the Fulbright Programme, you have understood that in our world, the engine for progress is fuelled by knowledge. You know that it is only by bridging the knowledge gap, that we can combat exclusion and marginalization and bridge the divide among peoples and cultures."

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Goodman, Allan E.
President and CEO
Institute of International Education

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"America -- and the world -- benefits enormously from the international exchange of people and ideas. Some of the international students that are here today will win the Nobel prizes of the future. In the process they may well cure cancer, discover a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, and become the leaders of the governments upon which ultimate success in the wars against poverty, disease and terrorism will depend. We must remember that much of hatred is born of ignorance and repression, and there is no surer way to break down such barriers than to live, study and build relationships in a culture beyond one's own."

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“The demands of globalization are likely to require that students learn to learn in ways and about things that extend beyond their borders, creating virtually everywhere unprecedented levels of mobility. Fulbrighters will be a key resource in helping universities adjust to these dynamics.”

“Programs that promote the international exchange of people and ideas are the intellectual power lines and thoroughfares of the future. The Fulbright Program sets a world standard for how those capacities ought to be constructed. It has the advantage, through your existence, of drawing on the best minds and resources for making this happen in even better and more profound ways in a century where knowledge has become a global commodity.”

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“The encounter in a seminar discussion or in a research task force an American might have with a foreign student introduces not only different ways of working on and solving a problem but also entirely different ways of thinking. Such interaction has the capacity to introduce the idea that civilization matters and that there may be more than one of them at work in the world. I also know that no one who studies abroad remains unchanged by the experience. Part of the change that occurs is the widening of a person's intellectual horizons and a dissolving of borders and boundaries. As the late Senator J. William Fulbright put it, "nations are transformed into people." There is something profoundly civilizational about that, too.”

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Lantos, Tom (D-CA)
Former Ranking Member
House International Relations Committee

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"We must...increase educational and cultural exchanges with the Middle East and South Asia and promote educational programming in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries that lack access to basic education."

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