Patricia Kushlis at WhirledView has an excellent review of William P. Kiehl’s How Colleges Can Create International Communities. I won’t repeat the points made about the book (but make sure to read the review). But I would add that while it is heartening to see that educational and cultural affairs have been mentioned by both President Obama (especially in his Cairo speech) and Secretary Clinton as they call for more student exchanges, it remains to be seen if funding and focus will re-invigorate the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs after years of cuts and neglect. Updating public diplomacy will require patience and long-term investments in exchanges and cultural diplomacy (slow media) – and that will require an attention span beyond what Twitter can offer (fast media). Helping our college campuses to internationalize in a meaningful way is a good place to start to invest where the payoffs last decades.
