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Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs

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Overview:

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was established as part of the State Department. Its primary goal is to bring together students and professionals from the United States and across the world in hopes of building stronger relationships between the countries. The Bureau funds and sponsors many programs for international education exchanges to promote their objective of cultural learning and mutual understanding.

 
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History:

The State Department first established a Division of Cultural Relations in 1938. In 1944, it was placed under the direction of the first Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. What is now known as the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was formerly established on April 17th, 1960, after previously being labeled the Bureau of International Cultural Relations in 1959. The Bureau functioned as part of the State Department until 1978 when its functions were transferred to the International Communications Agency (later the US Information Agency). However, the Bureau was transferred back into the State Department when the USIA was merged into the Department of State in 1999.

 
Since its inception, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has continued to create programs and international educational exchanges that focus on learning about different countries and cultures. The most well-known program is the Fulbright Program, which was founded in 1946 through legislation initiated by Senator J William Fulbright of Arkansas. The 1961 Fulbright-Hays Act, also known as the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act, continued to create programs, including the International Visitor Leadership Program, as well as increase exchange opportunities under the Fulbright Program. 

 

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What it Does:

The Bureau is divided into many initiatives, exchanges and programs. One of the founding programs is the Fulbright Scholar Exchange which was established in 1946 and currently operates in more than 150 countries. It is an international education program that is intended to increase mutual understanding between the US and other countries. As one of the most prestigious and prominent programs, it received approximately $184.6 million in 2006 through Congressional appropriation. The Bureau also sponsors many other international education exchanges for graduate, undergraduate students, and high school students; these programs focus on raising world leaders who can promote a better understanding of the US abroad.

 

Other aspects of the Bureau are its special initiatives. One such initiative is the Global Cultural Initiative that began on September 25th, 2006, and aimed at building and assembling the many resources and talents of America’s cultural institutions to support a broad-reaching international cultural diplomacy effort. This initiative focuses on a partnership between the United States government and the private sector that connects foreign audiences with American artists and art forms.
 
The Bureau also sponsors the World Cup Sports Initiative in which soccer clinics were given by US Soccer National Team players and coaches in South Africa, Bahrain, Uganda, and Nigeria in 2006 in an effort to show how teamwork, respect, leadership, and conflict resolution can translate into life skills and academic achievement. The National Security Language Initiative which also began in 2006, was an interagency initiative by the Departments of State, Education and Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; it was devised to increase the number of Americans learning critical-need foreign languages through new and expanded programs for all ages and levels.
 
Lastly, the Bureau runs the International Cultural Protection Program which executes the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (for the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Mans of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property). The program looks at requests from other countries to limit the US importation of archaeological or ethnological artifacts.
 
Programs for US Citizens:
-       The Fulbright Program
 
Exchanges to the US:
-       The Fulbright Program
-       Graduate Programs
-       Undergraduate Programs
 
Special Initiatives:
 
Other Programs:
-       Ambassador’s Fund
-       Cultural Programs
-       Sports Programs
-       Alumni Programs
 
Other Bureau Information:
-       Program Evaluation

 

more
Controversies:

With regards to the International Cultural Property Protection Program, a 2006 website on cultural vandalism named “Elginism” discusses a New York Times article on the limiting of importing Chinese artifacts to the US. The International Herald Tribune also wrote about the State Department’s October 2006 decision to wait on making limits to China’s request to limit the importation of their art and artifacts. A NY Times article in April 2007 also discusses the limitation of China’s artifacts and the role the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) plays in balancing the interests of historic sites, archaeologists, private individuals, and museums; the article claims the CPAC is now perceived as an enemy of the commercial art market.

 

 

 

more
Former Directors:

C. Miller Crouch

A career member in the Senior Foreign Service, C. Miller Crouch has been assigned Washington tours with the US Information Agency and overseas tours of duty in France, Romania, Italy, and Ethiopia. Mr. Crouch joined the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in July 2002. He concurrently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary from June 2007 until March 2008.
 
Dina Powell
Former Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Dina Powell has been a prominent figure in politics. Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1973, her family moved to Dallas, Texas in 1977. After graduation from the University of Texas, Austin Powell had an internship with Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and later worked for Republican Member Relations Coordinator Dick Armey, who was then the House majority leader. From 1999 to 2001 she acted as the Director of Congressional Affairs and Senior Advisor to the Chairman for the Republican National Committee. In 2001 she became the Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director. In 2003 she became the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel becoming the youngest person to fill that position at age 31.
 

Two years later, in 2005, President Bush nominated Dina Powell for Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs and was soon designated Deputy Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. However, in May 2007 she announced her resignation at the end of the year to become the Director of Global Corporate Engagement for the Goldman Sachs Group, one of the world’s largest global investment banks.

 

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Comments

Judith Graven 14 years ago
I am researching a book on the history of Project India, a program sponsored by the University Religious Conference and UCLA from 1952 to 1969. Fourteen students went each summer (7 students from 1967 to 1969) to meet Indian college students and give them a truer impression of what Americans were like. The USIS in India was always very favorably impressed with the quality of Project India, and for 8 years the State Department provided substantial financing for the Project. For sever...

Leave a comment

Founded: 1938
Annual Budget: $501 million
Employees: 390
Official Website: http://eca.state.gov/
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Ryan, Evan
Previous Assistant Secretary

The State Department agency that sponsors programs for international education and cultural exchange, such as the Fulbright Scholar Program, is set to have a new leader. President Barack Obama on July 9 nominated Evan Ryan to serve as the next Assistant Secretary of State to run the Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs. Ryan has served in the White House as assistant to tVice President Joe Biden and special assistant to the President for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement since 2009. If confirmed by the Senate as expected, Ryan would succeed Ann Stock, who has served in the post since 2010.

 

Born circa 1972 to Anthony and Donna Ryan of Alexandria, Virginia, Evan Maureen Ryan graduated Georgetown Visitation Prep School in 1989, going on to earn a B.A. in Political Science at Boston College in 1993 and a Masters in International Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 2006. 

 

Ryan served on the White House staff of First Lady Hillary Clinton as special assistant to the First Lady’s chief of staff from 1994 to 1997 and as deputy director of scheduling from 1997 to 2000. The latter job required Ryan to travel to 22 countries to prepare for Clinton’s foreign trips.

 

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, Ryan continued to work for Hillary Clinton as director of scheduling for the “Hillary 2000” U.S. Senate campaign in New York, following up by working on the presidential campaign of John Kerry, who was then U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, as deputy communications director in 2003 and 2004.

 

Ryan was deputy chair for the Governance track of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in 2005, and served as political director of Unite Our States in 2006.

 

In 2007 and 2008, Ryan was deputy campaign manager for the presidential primary campaign of Joe Biden, who was then serving as U.S. Senator from Delaware. After Biden was nominated to run for vice president, she worked for the general election campaign as well. 

 

Ryan was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the conflict-management NGO PeacePlayers International from 2001 to 2009, and has served as a consultant for the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, an NGO co-founded by Angelina Jolie and Gene Sperling. From 2008 to 2013, she was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Ryan has been married to Antony J. Blinken, assistant to President Obama and deputy national security adviser to the president, since March 2002.

 

- Matt Bewig

 

Vice Presidential Assistant Evan Ryan '89 is Latest 'Women Who Make a Difference' Speaker (Georgetown Visitation)

more
Stock, Ann
Former Assistant Secretary

More than six months after President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Judith Ann Stock to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), she was finally confirmed on June 17, 2010, and publically sworn in by her old friend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on July 14. The ECA was established as part of the State Department, under a different name, in 1938.  Its primary goal is to bring together students and professionals from the United States and across the world in hopes of building stronger relationships between the countries.  The bureau funds and sponsors many programs for international education exchanges to promote the objective of cultural learning and mutual understanding. Its best-known program is the Fulbright Scholar Program.  

 
Ann Stock graduated from Jefferson High School in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1964 and then earned a B.A. in elementary education at Purdue University, working fulltime at a bookstore to pay for her education. She began her career as an elementary school teacher, but did not find it to her liking. She then worked as a flight attendant for Pan American Airways, but developed a fear of flying after the electrical phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s fire hit a plane she was on.
 
Stock was Deputy Press Secretary to Vice President Walter F. Mondale during the 1980 presidential election campaign. Shortly thereafter, she went to work at Bloomingdale’s Department Stores, where she was Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Relations for ten years. Returning to public service, from January 1993 to September 1997 Stock was Deputy Assistant to President Bill Clinton and the Social Secretary at the White House.  In September 1997 she became Vice President of Institutional Affairs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Stock oversaw the Center’s expanded efforts to increase its national and international profile and managed the Center’s International Arts Management Programs.  She also supervised the Government Relations Office, Press Office and Office of Institutional Affairs. 
 
A Democrat, Stock has contributed $6,300 to Democratic candidates, including $4,300 to Hillary Clinton’s Senatorial and presidential campaigns. Her husband, Stuart Stock, is a partner in the financial institution division of Covington & Burling, a leading law and lobbying firm. A specialist in bank deals, in 2005, Stuart Stock received $420,000 to lobby on behalf of mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The couple has one son.
 
Stock is known as a devoted practitioner of needlepoint.
 
 
 
 
 
 
more

Table of Contents
Bookmark and Share
Overview:

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was established as part of the State Department. Its primary goal is to bring together students and professionals from the United States and across the world in hopes of building stronger relationships between the countries. The Bureau funds and sponsors many programs for international education exchanges to promote their objective of cultural learning and mutual understanding.

 
more
History:

The State Department first established a Division of Cultural Relations in 1938. In 1944, it was placed under the direction of the first Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. What is now known as the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs was formerly established on April 17th, 1960, after previously being labeled the Bureau of International Cultural Relations in 1959. The Bureau functioned as part of the State Department until 1978 when its functions were transferred to the International Communications Agency (later the US Information Agency). However, the Bureau was transferred back into the State Department when the USIA was merged into the Department of State in 1999.

 
Since its inception, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has continued to create programs and international educational exchanges that focus on learning about different countries and cultures. The most well-known program is the Fulbright Program, which was founded in 1946 through legislation initiated by Senator J William Fulbright of Arkansas. The 1961 Fulbright-Hays Act, also known as the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act, continued to create programs, including the International Visitor Leadership Program, as well as increase exchange opportunities under the Fulbright Program. 

 

more
What it Does:

The Bureau is divided into many initiatives, exchanges and programs. One of the founding programs is the Fulbright Scholar Exchange which was established in 1946 and currently operates in more than 150 countries. It is an international education program that is intended to increase mutual understanding between the US and other countries. As one of the most prestigious and prominent programs, it received approximately $184.6 million in 2006 through Congressional appropriation. The Bureau also sponsors many other international education exchanges for graduate, undergraduate students, and high school students; these programs focus on raising world leaders who can promote a better understanding of the US abroad.

 

Other aspects of the Bureau are its special initiatives. One such initiative is the Global Cultural Initiative that began on September 25th, 2006, and aimed at building and assembling the many resources and talents of America’s cultural institutions to support a broad-reaching international cultural diplomacy effort. This initiative focuses on a partnership between the United States government and the private sector that connects foreign audiences with American artists and art forms.
 
The Bureau also sponsors the World Cup Sports Initiative in which soccer clinics were given by US Soccer National Team players and coaches in South Africa, Bahrain, Uganda, and Nigeria in 2006 in an effort to show how teamwork, respect, leadership, and conflict resolution can translate into life skills and academic achievement. The National Security Language Initiative which also began in 2006, was an interagency initiative by the Departments of State, Education and Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; it was devised to increase the number of Americans learning critical-need foreign languages through new and expanded programs for all ages and levels.
 
Lastly, the Bureau runs the International Cultural Protection Program which executes the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (for the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Mans of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property). The program looks at requests from other countries to limit the US importation of archaeological or ethnological artifacts.
 
Programs for US Citizens:
-       The Fulbright Program
 
Exchanges to the US:
-       The Fulbright Program
-       Graduate Programs
-       Undergraduate Programs
 
Special Initiatives:
 
Other Programs:
-       Ambassador’s Fund
-       Cultural Programs
-       Sports Programs
-       Alumni Programs
 
Other Bureau Information:
-       Program Evaluation

 

more
Controversies:

With regards to the International Cultural Property Protection Program, a 2006 website on cultural vandalism named “Elginism” discusses a New York Times article on the limiting of importing Chinese artifacts to the US. The International Herald Tribune also wrote about the State Department’s October 2006 decision to wait on making limits to China’s request to limit the importation of their art and artifacts. A NY Times article in April 2007 also discusses the limitation of China’s artifacts and the role the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) plays in balancing the interests of historic sites, archaeologists, private individuals, and museums; the article claims the CPAC is now perceived as an enemy of the commercial art market.

 

 

 

more
Former Directors:

C. Miller Crouch

A career member in the Senior Foreign Service, C. Miller Crouch has been assigned Washington tours with the US Information Agency and overseas tours of duty in France, Romania, Italy, and Ethiopia. Mr. Crouch joined the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in July 2002. He concurrently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary from June 2007 until March 2008.
 
Dina Powell
Former Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Dina Powell has been a prominent figure in politics. Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1973, her family moved to Dallas, Texas in 1977. After graduation from the University of Texas, Austin Powell had an internship with Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and later worked for Republican Member Relations Coordinator Dick Armey, who was then the House majority leader. From 1999 to 2001 she acted as the Director of Congressional Affairs and Senior Advisor to the Chairman for the Republican National Committee. In 2001 she became the Special Assistant to the President and Associate Director. In 2003 she became the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel becoming the youngest person to fill that position at age 31.
 

Two years later, in 2005, President Bush nominated Dina Powell for Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs and was soon designated Deputy Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. However, in May 2007 she announced her resignation at the end of the year to become the Director of Global Corporate Engagement for the Goldman Sachs Group, one of the world’s largest global investment banks.

 

more

Comments

Judith Graven 14 years ago
I am researching a book on the history of Project India, a program sponsored by the University Religious Conference and UCLA from 1952 to 1969. Fourteen students went each summer (7 students from 1967 to 1969) to meet Indian college students and give them a truer impression of what Americans were like. The USIS in India was always very favorably impressed with the quality of Project India, and for 8 years the State Department provided substantial financing for the Project. For sever...

Leave a comment

Founded: 1938
Annual Budget: $501 million
Employees: 390
Official Website: http://eca.state.gov/
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Ryan, Evan
Previous Assistant Secretary

The State Department agency that sponsors programs for international education and cultural exchange, such as the Fulbright Scholar Program, is set to have a new leader. President Barack Obama on July 9 nominated Evan Ryan to serve as the next Assistant Secretary of State to run the Bureau for Education and Cultural Affairs. Ryan has served in the White House as assistant to tVice President Joe Biden and special assistant to the President for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement since 2009. If confirmed by the Senate as expected, Ryan would succeed Ann Stock, who has served in the post since 2010.

 

Born circa 1972 to Anthony and Donna Ryan of Alexandria, Virginia, Evan Maureen Ryan graduated Georgetown Visitation Prep School in 1989, going on to earn a B.A. in Political Science at Boston College in 1993 and a Masters in International Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 2006. 

 

Ryan served on the White House staff of First Lady Hillary Clinton as special assistant to the First Lady’s chief of staff from 1994 to 1997 and as deputy director of scheduling from 1997 to 2000. The latter job required Ryan to travel to 22 countries to prepare for Clinton’s foreign trips.

 

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, Ryan continued to work for Hillary Clinton as director of scheduling for the “Hillary 2000” U.S. Senate campaign in New York, following up by working on the presidential campaign of John Kerry, who was then U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, as deputy communications director in 2003 and 2004.

 

Ryan was deputy chair for the Governance track of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York in 2005, and served as political director of Unite Our States in 2006.

 

In 2007 and 2008, Ryan was deputy campaign manager for the presidential primary campaign of Joe Biden, who was then serving as U.S. Senator from Delaware. After Biden was nominated to run for vice president, she worked for the general election campaign as well. 

 

Ryan was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the conflict-management NGO PeacePlayers International from 2001 to 2009, and has served as a consultant for the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, an NGO co-founded by Angelina Jolie and Gene Sperling. From 2008 to 2013, she was a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Ryan has been married to Antony J. Blinken, assistant to President Obama and deputy national security adviser to the president, since March 2002.

 

- Matt Bewig

 

Vice Presidential Assistant Evan Ryan '89 is Latest 'Women Who Make a Difference' Speaker (Georgetown Visitation)

more
Stock, Ann
Former Assistant Secretary

More than six months after President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Judith Ann Stock to be Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), she was finally confirmed on June 17, 2010, and publically sworn in by her old friend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on July 14. The ECA was established as part of the State Department, under a different name, in 1938.  Its primary goal is to bring together students and professionals from the United States and across the world in hopes of building stronger relationships between the countries.  The bureau funds and sponsors many programs for international education exchanges to promote the objective of cultural learning and mutual understanding. Its best-known program is the Fulbright Scholar Program.  

 
Ann Stock graduated from Jefferson High School in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1964 and then earned a B.A. in elementary education at Purdue University, working fulltime at a bookstore to pay for her education. She began her career as an elementary school teacher, but did not find it to her liking. She then worked as a flight attendant for Pan American Airways, but developed a fear of flying after the electrical phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s fire hit a plane she was on.
 
Stock was Deputy Press Secretary to Vice President Walter F. Mondale during the 1980 presidential election campaign. Shortly thereafter, she went to work at Bloomingdale’s Department Stores, where she was Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Relations for ten years. Returning to public service, from January 1993 to September 1997 Stock was Deputy Assistant to President Bill Clinton and the Social Secretary at the White House.  In September 1997 she became Vice President of Institutional Affairs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Stock oversaw the Center’s expanded efforts to increase its national and international profile and managed the Center’s International Arts Management Programs.  She also supervised the Government Relations Office, Press Office and Office of Institutional Affairs. 
 
A Democrat, Stock has contributed $6,300 to Democratic candidates, including $4,300 to Hillary Clinton’s Senatorial and presidential campaigns. Her husband, Stuart Stock, is a partner in the financial institution division of Covington & Burling, a leading law and lobbying firm. A specialist in bank deals, in 2005, Stuart Stock received $420,000 to lobby on behalf of mortgage giant Freddie Mac. The couple has one son.
 
Stock is known as a devoted practitioner of needlepoint.
 
 
 
 
 
 
more

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