The Making of the Fulbright Program

Abstract

The nature and character of the Fulbright program were shaped by the 1946 legislation that gave it life, by the circumstance of its foreign currency financing generated by surplus property sales, by those in the State Department and in a few private organizations, and by members of the first Board of Foreign Scholarships, who transformed the Fulbright Act into the worldwide educational exchange program we know today. Early decisions by the Board were the building blocks on which the program has grown and flourished. The first bilaterial Fulbright programs depended on the negotiation of executive agreements with participating governments and the establishing of binational commissions abroad. The latter played a key role in the initial acceptance of the exchange program, in its planning and administration, and in eventual joint financing by many participating governments. Today the Fulbright program looks to the future with confidence as it proudly claims over 156,000 alumni in the United States and abroad.

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References

1. Eric Sevareid, CBS commentary, 18 May 1976.

2. J. William Fulbright, Remarks at the fortieth anniversary observance of the Fulbright program, The Hague, The Netherlands, Apr. 1986.

See also Francis A. Young , “Educational Exchanges and the National Interest,” American Council of Learned Societies Newsletter, 20(2) (1969).

4. Board of Foreign Scholarships , Quarter Century, p. 9.

5. Board of Foreign Scholarships , A Statement on Educational Exchanges in the Seventies (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1971).

6. The Fulbright Act, signed into law on 1 Aug. 1946 (Pub. L. No. 79-584), superseded by the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (Pub. L. No. 87-256).

7. Board of Foreign Scholarships , Quarter Century, p. 26.

8. USIA Authorization Act, Fiscal years 1984-85 (Tit. 2, Pub. L. No. 98-164).

These and other decisions setting forth Board policy are included in the summary minutes of Board meetings. These decisions are described in more detail in Walter Johnson and Francis J. Colligan , The Fulbright Program: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965).

10.

10. Board of Foreign Scholarships , Quarter Century, p. 28.

11.

11. Ibid.

12.

12. Johnson and Colligan , Fulbright Program, p. 181.

13.

13. Board of Foreign Scholarships , Quarter Century, p. 29.

14.

14. Ibid., p. 32.

15.

See also Policy Statements, Board of Foreign Scholarships, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, United States Information Agency, 1986).