David Comp
International Higher Education Consulting
http://ihec-djc.blogspot.com/
The Fulbright Program 2
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to introduce a bill for reference to the
Committee on Military Affairs, authorizing the use of credits established abroad for the
promotion of international good will through the Exchange of students in fields of
education, culture, and science
A Bill to amend the Surplus Property Act of 1944 to designate the Department of State
as the disposal agency for surplus property outside the United States, its Territories
and possessions, and for other purposes
In 1945, as a direct response to the tragedy of World War II, Senator J. William
Fulbright introduced legislation sponsoring exchange programs for students and faculty
between the United States and foreign countries that was eventually signed into law by
President Harry S. Truman on August 1, 1946. Fulbright (1976) stated that “it is…fair to
say that the Exchange Program is an instrument of foreign policy, not just for the Untied
States, for all participating nations – as well as a memorable educational experience for
the individual participants” (p. 2). The Fulbright Act set in motion a great history of
international exchange between the United States and the rest of the world. The
educational exchange and foreign language components from additional legislation such
as The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (also known as The
Smith-Mundt Act), amendments to The Mutual Security Act in 1952, and The National
Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 were consolidated into The Mutual Educational
and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961 (better known as The Fulbright-Hays Act). The
Fulbright-Hays Act remains law today and represents the world’s flagship international
publications that discuss the Fulbright Program and its legacy. I’m particularly interested
in how the various authors discuss and organize the early history of the program.
Specifically, the years just prior to the signing of the Fulbright Act of 1946 through the
few years following the Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961. My analysis will consider The
Fulbright Act and The Fulbright-Hays Act to be two separate and very distinct laws but
will also treat these laws as identical since the The Fulbright Act of 1946 was absorbed
into The Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961. Throughout this paper I will use the term
The Fulbright Program 4
“Fulbright program” to refer to the overall philosophy/scope of these two Acts but will
also refer to these Acts by their particular titles as necessary. Additional publications
were read to provide a more in depth understanding of the Fulbright program and its
Forty years: The Fulbright program 1946-1986, Twenty-third annual report of the
This publication is the official 1986 report of the Board of Foreign Scholarships
(today known as J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board) which focused on the
first forty years of the program. This report is only forty seven pages long with seventeen
of these pages devoted to specific fellowship data (quantitative) for the 1985 to 1986
academic year as well as historical data from 1949 to 1986. The Board of Foreign
space. This publication is divided into various sections starting with a letter from the
Board of Foreign Scholarships Chairman, followed by “The Laws Behind the Program,”
“Other Major Activities.” This is the perfect publication for someone new to the
Fulbright program who wants to gain a thorough understanding of its history, current
organizational and funding structures, recent accomplishments and future goals, all
supported by current and historical data. It’s filled with specific information to inform
the reader and formatted in a manner to include multiple glossy photos, tables and charts.
This is a typical annual report for the Foreign Scholarship Board except that this
report celebrates the first forty years of the program and provides more details on the
The Fulbright Program 5
early history of the program than the average report. Included therein is valuable, albeit
brief, information on the early problems of setting up the program. While the underlying
cultural differences, the main purpose is academic exchange. This annual report does a
very good job of describing both the academic focus and cultural
section. This section also provides insight into the early discussions and planning on the
selection process of Fulbright fellows. It describes how during the selection process that
weight is not to be given with respect to financial need (it should be a secondary
comprehensive listing of all the members of the Board of Foreign Scholarships from
1946 to 1986. This report does not consult any outside sources and supplies its own data
on the number and destinations of Fulbright fellowships. Any scholar researching the
Fulbright program should consult the annual reports of the Board of Foreign Scholarships
(know today as The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board). These official
reports provide specific information about the history of the program, its current state of
affairs and goals for the future. In addition, they provide current competition cycle and
historical data.
This book was first published in 1965 by Walter Johnson and Francis J. Colligan
by the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Walter Johnson was chairman of the Department
of History at the University of Chicago and served on the Board of Foreign Scholarships
The Fulbright Program 6
from 1947 to 1954 and as chairman of the Board of Foreign Scholarships from 1950 to
1953. Dr. Francis J. Colligan served as the executive secretary of the Board of Foreign
Scholarships from 1948 to 1957. Given Johnson and Colligan’s involvement and
leadership roles on the Board of Foreign Scholarships during its initial years of existence
it is not surprising that J. William Fulbright himself wrote the foreward to this book. This
book provides an in depth historical analysis of the first twenty years of the Fulbright
program. The book is sub-divided into four distinct parts titled “Launching the
Program,” “The Program Around the World,” “The American People and the Program,”
and “The Significance of the Program.” In addition, there are four appendices that are
worthy of review. The first two appendices provide the text of The Fulbright Act of 1946
and The Fulbright-Hays Act of 1961, respectively. The third appendix provides
fellowship data from the current fellowship cycle of the Fulbright-Hays Program (1963 to
1964) and historical data through 1962. This appendix on fellowship data is important to
include in a book on the history of the Fulbright program but I feel the authors could have
presented much more data and in a better format. The final appendix provides a listing of
all the members, executive secretaries and chief of operations staff from of the Board of
Johnson and Colligan provide the most thorough history of the Fulbright program
than any of the other publications read for this analysis. Johnson and Colligan begin
presenting the history of the Fulbright program by describing the state of international
educational exchange as far back the 1890’s through the early decades of the twentieth
century. The history of the Fulbright program can easily be told by starting with the end
of World War II and the signing of The Fulbright Act of 1946. Johnson and Colligan,
The Fulbright Program 7
about the previous fifty years of international educational exchange in the United States
as well as on other national and international events that laid the foundation for Senator J.
William Fulbright to introduce his bill in September 1945 which paved the way for
creation of the Fulbright program. This type of historical analysis would be expected
from Johnson who was a historian by training. Johnson and Colligan consult a
significant number of both primary and secondary sources to supplement their personal
knowledge of the Fulbright program and to inform their research. A review of the
footnotes and “Bibliographical Comment” section of the book provides the reader with a
better understanding of the accuracy of Johnson and Colligan’s writings. They were
informed authors.
This book was written by Leonard R. Sussman in 1992. Sussman held numerous,
high-level, educational and policy positions such as serving on the U.S. delegations to
the Governor of Puerto Rico, Executive Director and senior scholar of Freedom House
and adjunct professor in Journalism and Mass Communication at New York University.
At just under two hundred pages this book is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to
learn about the history and other details of the Fulbright program. Sussman does a very
good job of describing the history of the program. As we saw earlier with Johnson and
Colligan, Sussman begins describing the history of the Fulbright as having its roots early
in the twentieth century rather than at the end of World War II. Sussman, however, is not
The Fulbright Program 8
and Colligan but does begin to tie things together starting with 1925 which was the year
Sussman’s book provides an excellent account of how the Fulbright program was first
established and then developed during its earliest years until The Fulbright-Hays Act of
1961 and on through the late 1980’s and very early 1990’s.
Sussman organized his book into thirteen chapters. I will not list all of the
chapters in this paper but some of the more important chapters include: “Toward a
National Cultural Policy,” “A History of the Fulbright Program,” “How Do You Get a
Fulbright Grant?,” “Fulbright on Fulbright,” “Is the Program Effective?,” and four
chapters on “Country Models…” for Japan, Indonesia, India and Italy. Sussman also has
the following three appendices: “Interviewees for the Study,” “1991 White Paper, J.
interview with J. William Fulbright himself. The data on Fulbright fellowships awarded
which are presented in the third appendix are rather weak and it’s debatable if these
figures should be included as a two page appendix. Sussman could have obtained more
complete data and incorporated them into this otherwise comprehensive book.
that this highly successful program continue. The Campus program was created in
response to the insurgencies in Central America during the 1980’s and brought
program hosting several undergraduate scholars from Central America, many of whom I
Associates, Inc., who was under contract by the United States Information Agency
(USIA), who identified that returned CAMPUS participants from El Salvador created an
proceedings of the 1997 “International Education in the New Global Era” national policy
conference on The Higher Education Act, Title VI, and Fulbright-Hays Programs held at
the University of California, Los Angeles. This conference invited more than 250
discuss the current state and the future of international education and area studies. While
this 250 page book has several conference papers either directly related to the Fulbright-
Hays program or weaves various aspects of the Fulbright program throughout, I chose to
select the Scarfo paper for this analysis as it directly focuses on the history of Title VI
and The Fulbright-Hays Act. Scarfo begins by discussing the history of Title VI, which
dominates most of the attention of his paper, and weaves The Fulbright-Hays Act and
Almost immediately, Scarfo informs the reader about The National Defense
Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 and that by passing this legislation, the United States
Congress understood that the defense and security of the United States were bound with
The Fulbright Program 10
education (Scarfo, 1998). Since this was a conference paper for invited experts in the
field Scarfo’s purpose was more to refresh the memory of conference attendees rather
than provide new or more in depth historical background. However, for the uninformed
researcher reading this conference paper and publication will only have an immediate
mentioned, Scarfo weaves the Fulbright-Hays program and legislation throughout his
and how the functions associated with this Section of The Act were assigned by President
Kennedy to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare which had responsibility of
domestic educational matters (Scarfo, 1998, p. 24). Specifically, it was agreed by the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Office of Management and Budget,
the Department of State and Senator Fulbright that section 102(b)(6) added an
Education Act (IEA) of 1966 into his historical timeline. The International Education
This book was written by Theodore M. Vestal in 1994. Vestal continues to serve
Vestal’s book is divided into the following three parts: “Protean International Education
and Its Connections with the Federal Government,” “A National Model: The IEA of
1966,” and “International Education in the Post-Cold War Era.” In addition, the second
The Fulbright Program 11
appendix includes both The International Education Act (IEA) of 1966 and The David L.
In this instance, I specifically chose a book that did not directly focus on
see how the author(s) worked the Fulbright program into their analysis. Vestal’s book,
fits this description. The main focus of his book is The International Education Act of
1966 and The David L. Boren National Security Education Act of 1991. Vestal does a
good job of incorporating The Fulbright Act, The Fulbright-Hays Act and anecdotal
information about J. William Fulbright into the history of international education. Vestal
actually begins discussing the history of international education (or at least international
education policy) with The Morrill Act of 1862 and how Senator Justin Morrill
discussing The Morrill Act of 1862, Vestal quickly jumps to the time period of World
War II which is when Senator J. William Fulbright and The Fulbright Act are introduced.
While citations to the Fulbright program in this book are limited they do provide helpful
1966. Despite specific focus on The International Education Act of 1966 and The David
L. Boren National Security Education Act of 1991, this book is a must read for any
References
The Fulbright Program 12
Johnson, W., & Colligan, F.J. (1967). The Fulbright program: A history.
(Fulbright-Hays Act).
Hawkins, C.M. Haro, M.A. Kazanjian, G.W. Merkx and D. Wiley (Eds.), International
education in the new global era: Proceedings of a national policy conference on The
Higher Education Act, Title VI, and Fulbright-Hays Programs (pp. 23-25). Los Angeles:
Sussman, L.R. (1992). The culture of freedom: The small world of Fulbright
Vestal, T.M. (1994). International education: Its history and promise for today.
Scholarships.
The Fulbright Program 13
Dubois, D.R. (1995, Fall). Responding to the needs of our nation: A look at the
http://www.frontiersjournal.com/issues/vol1/index.htm.
Fulbright, J.W. (1976). The most significant and important activity I have been
privileged to engage in during my years in the senate. The Annals of the American
Educational Exchange Program. (1997, July). Fulbright at fifth: Meeting the challenge
of the next fifty years. Research Triangle Park, NC: National Humanities Center.