Fulbright Program Faces Cuts
By Brenna Sullivan
It appears that not a day goes by that the current administration doesn’t somehow make an attempt to undermine programming that benefits all people rather than those that support their oppressive platform. Taking a hit this time is the budget of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). Previously receiving $630 million, a mere .00014 percent of our country’s budget, Trump and peers aim to cut this to $159 million. Around this time a year ago, the possible cutting of the ECA’s budget to $288 million was unthinkable and met with strong opposition by members of Congress and constituents alike. After the tremendous regression the Trump’s Administration has lead our country to, culturally, internationally or otherwise, the fight for the ECA’s budget appears to have slipped to the back burner.
In his February 28 Op-Ed to the Baltimore Sun, author Samuel Fishman highlights the importance of funding the ECA and his own experiences through the Fulbright Program, a critical cultural exchange whose budget is funded through this bureau. The Fulbright Program, named after an internationalist senator from Arkansas, has been crucial in efforts of intercultural exchange and the foundations of international diplomacy between the U.S. and the countries involved.
“The Fulbright Program aims to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship,” said Senator Fulbright of the program.
Fishman discusses the moments he had with students of Paraguay who asked large-scale questions about American culture but lacked a certain understanding of the lives of ordinary Americans. He aims to answer these inquiries by bringing individuals who could speak to these experiences or people he thought to highlight the positive American cultural tenants of “historical pioneers, free press, and cultural diversity.”.
However, while Fishman’s piece is both essential and noble, I think he neglected a vital piece of what makes programming such as the Fulbright program so significant: the ability for university-educated Americans to bear witness and learn from those of other cultures and experience. Most countries are required to learn about us Americans because of our dominant presence in globalization and infiltration via colonization into other cultures. However, unless one studies a certain field or signs up for a particular class, cultural education here in the U.S. is skimmed at best for students, college or otherwise.
Cultural exchange should be a requirement or at least encouraged through the funding of programs such as those through the ECA. Sure, we as country can lead by numbers: number of dollars, number of weapons, and the number of cultures housed within our borders. But all of that means nothing if we lack quality of leadership and reassurance to American and international citizens alike. We should aim to build relationships through cultural exchange not solely for the sake of diplomacy or publicity’s sake, but rather for the good will of others and for the empathy that acknowledging the stories of others’ gives a leader when it comes time for political decisions. It is then that we can and hopefully will choose to find ways that simultaneously provide resources efficiently as a means to survive without the American way extinguishing the cultural practices that serve, to many, as a means of a life worth living.
