It is International Education Week (11/13/-11/17) across the U.S. Globally oriented educational experiences are vital to building relationships at the personal, community-based, and national levels that advance security, prosperity, human rights, and peace. Unfortunately, this administration has not made diplomacy and global understanding a priority, in fact, arguing at times that it is detrimental to U.S. interests. This op-ed in today’s Washington Post (11/13/17) discusses the serious and disastrous personnel cuts that are going at the Department of State. This is bad news, and on top of that the numbers of international students coming to the U.S. continues to fall according to IIE. The article points that many internationals are not feeling safe in the U.S.
All the more important that this week I feature the U.S. Diplomacy Center (USDC) as the Featured Peacebuilding Group. USDC is the public face of the U.S. State Department, and is a space where the public can learn about our efforts at promoting diplomacy as a means to peace. For educators, USDC offers a range of resources including recently developed simulations. In a previous blog I posted USDC’s recent newsletter. In addition, USIP has some events and resources that are being promoted this week on international education.
David J. Smith Consulting, LLC 