Nov 08, 2017
Fulbright Executive Director Dr. Oliver Schmidt advocates the Fulbright Program and its mission in Washington, D.C. He attended the annual Fulbright Association conference under the topic
“Fulbright: Now More Than Ever” from November 4 – 7 which gathered the worldwide Fulbright community and engaged all participants in a variety of panels and networking opportunities.
Advocacy for the Fulbright Program and its continued funding is vital to the Fulbright Program and its mission, and therefore has become a new component of the conference program:
a Fulbright Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill on November 7.
Conference attendees were assigned to over 40 different teams – one of them led by Oliver Schmidt - who met with Congressional officials covering 36 U.S. states and representatives from all six committees – Senate & House Homeland, Senate & House Appropriations, and Senate & House Foreign Affairs.
Oliver Schmidt and his colleagues met with members of the U.S. Congress to educate them about the Fulbright Program and ask for their continued support. Particularly with regard to the latest proposed budget cuts to the Fulbright Program the meetings also included Congress members who voted for these budget cuts in order to convince them of the substantial global impact the Fulbright Program has.
