April 2002 - Nr. 4
Fulbright Program Marks Half-Century of German-American Exchange
TWIG - Over the past 50 years, more than 30,000 students, researchers, teachers, professors and other academic professionals from Germany and the United States have taken part in the academic and cultural exchange of the German-American Fulbright Program. This week, the largest and most varied Fulbright program in the worldwide network celebrated its 50th anniversary in Berlin, home of the German-American Fulbright Commission.
U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright established the program immediately after World War II, with the idea of promoting mutual understanding among countries through academic and cultural exchange. Germany joined the organization in 1952 and contributes through cost-sharing and indirect support of the program. The German-American Fulbright Program awards up to 700 grants a year.
Fulbright grantees and alumni form a tight transatlantic network of communication, a connection that has become even more crucial since September 11, 2001, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer told an audience of 400 American Fulbright grantees, officials and invited guests at a ceremony at the Auswaertiges Amt (German Foreign Office) on Tuesday (March 12). "However deep our sympathy with the American people in the wake of these murderous attacks, however great the threat of international terrorism to the free society we prize — the way people feel on either side of the Atlantic is not the same. It is important to perceive, to understand and to communicate these differing moods and expectations. To this end we need, apart from policy-makers and officials, people who can serve as ‘translators.’ People who know and understand the world as it is seen from across the Atlantic."
Among the special guests at the Foreign Office ceremony was Harriet Mayor Fulbright, widow of Sen. Fulbright and former executive director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Daniel R. Coats, who, with Fischer, serves as an honorary chairman of the commission, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Patricia de Stacey Harrison were also in attendance. Commemorations will be held in the U.S. this fall.
