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Frank Sesno: [0:00:04] Good evening everybody? Everybody warm, have you fog from the… walk from the North Pole? The only good news we've decided about all of this, is the reflection on the way over that it isn’t Wisconsin and you have three more months of this to look forward to, so with any luck this will pass. I'm Frank Sesno, I'm the director of the School Of Media And Public Affairs here at the George Washington University, and I think I've had the pleasure of meeting many of you in other times and places, the institute for public diplomacy and global communication is an institute that is jointly chartered between the school of media and public affairs and the Elliot school of international affairs, that’s one reason we’re here and one reason Pat has joined us as our public diplomacy fellow this year. And we are very privileged to have her with us and very stimulated by the experience and the knowledge and the perspective that she brings to our faculty and to our students [0:01:00] and to classes she visits and runs.

[0:01:04] And so it is as part of that tradition that we’re also very anxious to hear this evening’s speaker, who really is doing public diplomacy at a very ambitious level, as we were discussing here briefly for a few minutes and trying to do some remarkable things to reach out, to engage, to commit public diplomacy in… at a time of great global upheaval. It’s very difficult to do in the best of times, whatever the best of times may be, or whenever we’ve ever had the best of times, I'm not sure. But it’s certainly a challenge in the worst of times.

[0:01:50] Evan Ryan is, as you'll see in your programs is the Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and as such she [0:02:00] oversees and helps to shape the kinds of exchanges, the kinds of discussions and dialogues that deal with exchanges of people and students and scholars and concern for cultural sites and issues that really engage this country in the kind of dialogue and role with the rest of the world that we want to have where we’re really the good guys and align with other good guys to promote understanding and cooperation. I'm looking forward to hearing her remarks but I have already apologized to her and I'll apologize to you, I'm going to have to leave partway through because I have got another commitment that unfortunately I need to get to.

[0:02:49] You'll also be hearing tonight and engaging the secretary in conversation is Pat Kabra who is our public diplomacy fellow this year as I mentioned [0:03:00]. Her bio is in your program but I will simply say that her experience on the ground in Egypt which is, I don’t know if you would call that your most, your highest profile or your highest stakes posting you’ve every had but it certainly is the most relevant in recent times. Has been a fantastic frame of reference and point of reference for our students and others because that is a sort of, in my business, in television business what we would call a real-time crisis, a real-time challenge and so what Pat brings to that discussion has been phenomenal.

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[0:03:37] So without further ado I'd like to welcome you again to I think the comfortably heated George Washington University and I'd like to welcome the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, Evan Ryan.

Evan Ryan: [0:03:57] Thank you Frank, Good evening everyone [0:04:00]. I've been really looking forward to joining you here, as soon as I heard about this and we were able to work with Pat I thought wow, a group of people who's actually really interested in public diplomacy so much that they are actually studying public diplomacy, for me that’s a fantastic audience to engage with. And I do want to thank Pat and Lola and Frank for having me here, thank you all for inviting us to join you today. Before I start, I'm with the bureau for educational and cultural affairs, which really oversees exchange programs, but as Frank mentioned our charge writ large is public diplomacy, so we have many ways of achieving that. But because you are an audience that understands this, I'd love to hear what you all think public diplomacy is before I get started. Does anyone, even, even, I don’t want to put anybody on the spot just anyone have a public diplomacy definition that they’d care to share?

[0:05:00]

Male Speaker: [0:05:03] This can’t be a room…

Evan Ryan: [0:05:08] If not, we’ll jump to mine, Lola…

Female Speaker: [0:05:10] Is it how a government interacts with people of foreign publics?

Evan Ryan: [0:05:15] I like your definition. It is… this is why it is helpful for me to come to a group like you all here today. People outside of a public diplomacy classroom like this get confused about what that means. Sometimes they think that means that public diplomacy is actually executing diplomatic meetings more publicly and that’s obviously not the case. What we try to do is engage peoples. We do find that we live in a time…go ahead, sorry

Female Speaker: [0:05:45] It also involves relation building at the…

Evan Ryan: [0:05:48] ‘Relationship building’ very good term, that’s a term that we like to use in our bureau. So thank you for that. So what we try to do when we talk about public diplomacy is break down the term a little bit [0:06:00]. We look at diplomacy, just straight diplomacy, when we’re trying to solve a problem or where there's a difference with us and another country that we’re trying to work out. When we’re looking to address said problem in a constructive and peaceful way, we employ diplomacy. And

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ideally we are looking for a win-win scenario so that each entity feels like they feel good at the end of that diplomatic process. Each side is able to explain their point of view, each side feels that they had an opportunity to really be very specific about their point of view, and a very key part of diplomacy is that each side is willing to listen and actually hear as well.

[0:06:55] So public diplomacy, as we've said, means citizens and not [0:07:00] just governments, but also engaging citizens and people of a country. That’s a very important piece of the 21st century world that we live in today. 18th, 19th century diplomacy really was leader to leader, king to king, government to government, but in the 20th century and even more so in the 21st century, diplomacy is about engaging with people. It’s about looking at democracy at all levels and making sure that we are reaching people at every level and sector of society. But just as misunderstandings among leaders in the past can lead to conflict, misunderstandings among people can do so in our time. And we’re seeing that today. We are confronted with serious challenges in the modern world, challenges of security and violent extremism, resource scarcity, food security, climate change [0:08:00], growing populations, no one country is going to be able to solve these problems alone.

[0:08:08] So it’s important that we engage people and try to work together. It is no longer about government to government; it’s about scientist to scientist, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, artist to artist, and student to student. So everyone here in this room is part of that effort to build networks. We’re looking for everybody to find ways in building these networks to actually live constructively, cooperatively and peacefully with the seven billion people with whom we share this planet. At the state department, we build networks through exchange programs. My mandate at the bureau of educational and cultural affairs is to use exchange programs to build friendly, peaceful relations between the people of United States and people of countries all around the world [0:09:00].

[0:09:01] We engage Americans and international participants to foster mutual understanding worldwide. We do this through academic exchanges like study abroad, but also through cultural exchanges, sports exchanges, professional exchanges, any topic you can think of, we have an exchange that fits into that. We had to really engage in positive foreign policy work, is how I like to describe public diplomacy and the work that we do. And at time where there are many challenges, we really are engaging in a positive way, and when I, and in meetings with my colleagues and I see the issues which they have to confront I'm very grateful that the work we do is focused on building bridges and building relationships.

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[0:09:46] We’re very focused in building these relationships on emerging leaders and on young people. 85% of our exchange participants are under the age of 35. Those are the audiences that we want to connect with, future [0:10:00] leaders and their countries in their country in any sector of society. And we work with these people to really build a sense of mutual trust, something that will last beyond their exchange experience, so that they can rely on that relationship and feel associated with us in the United States after their exchange is completed. ECA exchanges break down barriers that often divide us like religion, politics, language and ethnicity and geography. They build connections that engage and empower people and that motivate them to become leaders and thinkers to develop new skills and to find connections that will create positive change in their communities. ECA exchanges improve America’s foreign relations’ and strengthen our national security; Senator Lindsey Graham called our exchange programs ‘National Security Insurance’ and we’d like to quote that because it’s good coming from him.

[0:10:59] State department [0:11:00] exchange programs are long term investments in relationships around the world. We are actively building a global network of foreign citizens who understand the United States and Americans who understand the wider world, all of whom can be partners in solving global challenges. More than 360 alumni of ECA programs have gone on to become a Head of State or Head of government in their home country. This creates a network of leaders around the world who are connected by a common experience and hopefully leads to constructive dialogue for us and for our leaders here in this country when they are engaging with them. Equally important there have also been almost a million alumni of our exchange programs. Alumni from every country in the world, these are people who understand us, understand our values and are open to a dialogue with us. Alumni are an invaluable resource overseas [0:12:00] to our officers and embassy’s who are on the ground working towards our foreign policy goals. It makes it a little easier when an officer can pick up the phone and call someone who spent a year at Harvard as a Fulbrighters, or a semester at the University of Oregon, or did a Master right here at GW. That experience of America opens doors for us and makes it easier for us to have conversations abroad.

[0:12:28] When in the future the 47th or the 53rd or the 61st President of the United States is negotiating a new free trade agreement, a climate change treaty or an arms reduction path, it would be great if everyone on the other side of the table; the Head of States, the aide, the note taker; everyone in the delegation understood our perspective because they got to know America through an exchange, either by coming on an exchange, but there’s also the experience of actually meeting an American [0:13:00] whose been on an exchange in your home country. Beyond that however remember that we’re talking about public diplomacy engaging the broader

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public; even if everyone at the table understands America we still want to make sure that their people understand America.

[0:13:18] Every day through exchanges we’re increasing the number of people around the globe that get to know America; people who are willing to engage with us and work together with us on the challenges of the 21 st

century. ECA exchanges embody and convey the enduring values of democracy and civil society. Sometimes we are engaging with people who share the same values and there we find very willing partners in our global endeavors, but a lot of times we convey those values to parts of the world where people live in darkness and depression. Exchanges give us access to places where people do not enjoy our liberties and freedoms and it is critical work.

[0:14:00] As just one example one of our flagship programs; the Edward R Murrow program for journalists, each year brings professional journalists to the United Sates from over a 100 countries to examine journalistic practices here with us in the United States. The program is based on public private partnerships with leading US Schools of journalism and participants spend three weeks engaged with journalists and professors of journalism. This program helps them build skills and networks but it also sends an incredibly powerful message about freedom of the press and the leading role that independent media, academic institutions and civil society organizations play in shaping public debate in America. Think about this; ECA’s international high school exchange students have logged more than 1.5 million hours of community service in their American host communities and selection from many of our programs [0:15:00] is competitive and merit based. Think of the message that-that sends about who we are and how we do things, for countries that have no experience with volunteerism or social activism. Everything in their country might have to do with what ethnicity they are, with what their last name is, but when they come here to America just by example they experience something different. We are giving educators, students, professionals and society leaders at all levels skills, experience, information and access to professional colleagues that have tremendous positive impact and a tremendous multiplier effect. I have two examples.

[0:15:42] Over half 58% of participants in ECA’s global women’s mentoring program agreed that it helped them to launch a new business organization and 70% of them said it improved their opportunities to expand into new business areas. 86% [0:16:00] of American and college students in ECA’s critical language scholarship program said in a survey that they would use a foreign language in their future professions. And 68% of high school students in ECA’s national security language initiative say the program influenced their decisions about future careers.

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[0:16:22] That last point is related to US students; because our exchange is really do go both ways. We are giving American students who travel abroad the opportunity to learn languages and cultures, that are critical to their future success in the global market place. And our visitors get the benefit of meeting Americans, but tens of thousands of Americans every single year get the benefit of meeting people from the wider world and expanding their own horizons. I know that the value of people to people exchange is really appreciated at all levels of US government [0:17:00]. In fact President Obama is an ardent supporter of our exchange programs; his vision is shaped by his own experiences. The President spent time living abroad and that helped shape his view of the world. He sees himself actually as a product of exchange programs, had his father not been accepted as an exchange student to the University of Hawaii, he doesn’t think he would be here today. So he is living proof of how living abroad and experiencing new cultures gives you perspective and understanding

[0:17:38] In addition he is a strong advocate of spreading ideas and creating change through grassroots efforts; person to person and community to community that’s why he is committed to expanding and enhancing international exchanges and making them a cornerstone of foreign policy. For the past two years we have been engaged [0:18:00] in implementing the President’s global engagement strategy. It emphasis the utility of public diplomacy to address international events in crisis and underlines the need to ensure that our public diplomacy efforts clearly support our foreign policy. It urges us to use public diplomacy tools creatively, to expand our circles of contact. It asks that we ensure our public diplomacy efforts have a real return on investments, so that the American tax payer gets real value out of the work that my colleagues and I do every day.

[0:18:35] So ECA is taking into account the world that we live in now. We are reaching out to new varied and diverse audiences including women, youth and the economically and socially disadvantaged. You can see clearly our commitment to engaging and empowering youth in the presence Young Africans Leaders Initiative, which is called YALI. YALI brought 500 young leaders from across [0:19:00] Africa to the US last summer for intensive training in business, civil society and government leadership. YALI was so successful we had 500 spots, we had 50,000 applications. We are now standing up a new presidential initiative based on that success called the Young South East Asia Leaders Initiative or YSEALI and in addition to or traditional programs we have created a rapid response fund. That has the ability to create programs that meet a direct need to current events or crisis.

[0:19:35] For example, we have been have been able to use ECA programs to put legislators, legal scholars, communications experts and

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academic experts together to help new governments draft media laws, education legislation and strategic communication plans. We are maximizing our return on investment by ramping up our engagement with alumni of our programs and connect them in diverse and interesting ways [0:20:00] to keep their exchange experience alive.

[0:20:04] A new office at ECA called the Collaboratory, is exploring innovative ways to use digital technology and virtual interaction to enhance and extend the people to people exchanges. Just last month, we completed our first all virtual international visitor leadership program. On those occasions where they may not be able to bring people together physically, we have the tools to give them a valid and a valuable exchange experience virtually. And lastly, we are leveraging other resources, creating innovative partnerships with the private sector, NGOs and academic institutions. We partner with ESPNW with Fortune magazine, on mentorship programs for women and we partner with national geographic on a full break program for digital story telling. There’s one last group to talk about [0:21:00], and that is all of you, students. Anyone can raise their hand or not their hand.

[0:21:08] However, I just would be curious have many people in here been on an exchange program? That’s really good to see. And then… have any of… this is a tougher question and I know that, we’ve been looking at this, have any of your families hosted an exchange student? Okay, that’s great. That’s public diplomacy. Its bridge building and our challenge is to find more people like you. ECA program support about 350,000 participant exchanges. But I have an even more impressive number; the number of foreign citizens who studied in the United States last year, almost 900,000. And the number of Americans, who studied abroad, is about 300,000 [0:22:00] which, seems like a lot on the surface, but it’s really not. We need more US students studying abroad. We have more than 4000 accredited colleges and university in the United States and we are the global leader in higher education. So we draw people here. Those 900,000 foreign students represent only four percent of the total enrollment of US higher education. And our 300,000 adventurous American students studying abroad barely represent 1.5% of the 20 million American students enrolled in higher education programs at any given time. We lag behind other countries and student mobility.

[0:22:45] When a Chinese and an American come together to do business, the Chinese business partner has usually spent time in the US and speaks English. It’s less likely that the American has spent time in China or that the American speaks Chinese. And that scenario repeats [0:23:00] itself whether the other partner is from China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, India or even Germany. Campus communities play an essential role in preparing students to be engaged citizens and critical thinkers. Global engagement

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happens in classrooms, libraries, dormitories and laboratories, including right here on your campus. You are the drivers of innovation and you are the creators of knowledge. You are the inventors, the educators, the leaders of the future. The state department is working to encourage more international study for American students. We continue to promote study in the United States through a service called, Education USA where we have more than 400 international student advising centers in a 170 countries around the world that provide clear and helpful information for international students who want to come study in the United States. I have personally urged American universities to engage with and participate in education USA [0:24:00]. We need everybody to engage where they can. We are launching an office dedicated to exploring ways to expand the number and diversity of American studying abroad.

[0:24:10] The new US study abroad office will manage study abroad programs and explore partnerships with the higher education community to promote the benefit of study abroad, the students’ parents; teachers’ policy makers. We are using programs like our national security language initiative for youth and the critical language scholarship to provide young Americans with intensive language study in critical languages. We have the Benjamin A. Gilman international scholarship program which targets populations traditionally underrepresented and study abroad by offering scholarships for academic studies, or career oriented internships to Pell Grant recipients. On February 25th, we will host our first ever live virtually US study abroad fair in partnership with the institute of international education and college week live [0:25:00]. And finally, my colleagues and I take every opportunity that we have to urge students like you to change the tide. We urge you to welcome the world here to GW. Search out and seize opportunities to get out there. There’re more opportunities to connect with people further away from home than at any other time in human history.

[0:25:20] In a rapidly changing world, the experience of international world, the experience of international travel, international study and international engagement is going to make the difference between success and the opposite of success. With that I’d like to conclude my formal remarks and I look forward to taking your questions, thank you.

Female Speaker: [0:25:49] Well thank you so much for a wonderful summary and introduction for the students and our guests here, an amazing array of programs [0:26:00]. Obviously, we’ve worked together on some of those initiatives and there are some things that you do in ECA, the education and cultural affairs bureau that aren’t covered by exchanges that I think some people here know nothing about.

Evan Ryan: [0:26:16] Yes.

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Female Speaker: [0:26:17] Most recently I was working in Cairo and we started working on cultural preservation.

Evan Ryan: [0:26:23] That’s right.

Female Speaker: [0:26:24] Maybe you can give a little bit more information about what ECA does in that and how critical that is right now especially in a region like the Middle East.

Evan Ryan: [0:26:34] We do. Its little known fact, it’s true. But in the view of education and cultural affairs we have a cultural heritage centre, and the cultural heritage centre works with countries around the world to help preserve their heritage which I think is a wonderful public diplomacy message. I’ve often said to people, I… I’m fortunate enough to sit with my window facing the Lincoln Memorial. And I often think what would [0:27:00] it mean to us if something happened to the Lincoln Memorial, or if it was just not standing up to the test of time and eroding. It’s a fine government saying, “We want to honor your culture and y our heritage and we are going to give you the funds to help preserve it. It’s a very powerful way of showing respect and of communicating that you want to really strengthen that relationship.

[0:27:24] So, not many people know about the cultural heritage work that we do. As you referenced right now it is critical in the Middle East because it’s part of the anti-ISIL efforts. And then if you may know that what ISIL has been doing has been actually using either looting and then trafficking those items and selling those items to you and using those funds for their own purposes or just destroying heritage in Syria, Syria especially. We’ve seen real destruction. In the objective and psychological with ISIL the objective with that [0:28:00] level of destruction is to try to disassociate the Syrians from their heritage and their past. What we try to do is strengthen that and reinforce it. So it is a wonderful tool and we’ve been able to do a lot with it. And right now that office is very active in the anti-ISIL fund.

Female Speaker: [0:28:16] Well if I could ask maybe another question before we open it up to the audience, the last couple of days there have been a conference being held at the department of state, the president spoke yesterday on countering violent extremism. And you can see the role that you have to play at least in protecting natural heritage. But how do you see the role that exchanges and cultural programs can play in this countering violent extremism on initiative that is being discussed at this conference.

Evan Ryan: [0:28:55] So I really find… I …the benefits of my job is [0:29:00] we have exchange participants coming through here through Washington all

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the time. So virtually every week, I’m meeting with different groups of exchange participants all levels. High school, college, professional you know any level of exchange participant. And I have not yet met an exchange participant who has not found the experience completely transformative. Understanding the United States in a way they didn’t understand it before, really opening up and broadening their perspectives and broadening their minds. Giving them new ideas, helping them understand entrepreneurship, perhaps they’re going to think pursuing a graduate degree after being here. So it’s really powerful and then having just been at the CVE summit the representative from Bahrain I believe it was the foreign minister, in his formal remarks said if we could have more exchange programs, we could actually counter ISIL in a better fashion; we could do more. The president mentioned it in his remarks today; he mentioned the J Christopher Stevens Virtual Exchange Program [0:30:00] which we run.

[0:30:01] And he said that that was going to be a real way to increase the dialogue virtually that is what the program will do in the Middle East and North Africa region. And so really by getting people to engage with one another they understand one another, they build a bridge and a connection and but also you can change a trajectory of a person. Someone really might change their life path based on coming to the United States on their experience and also an American student going abroad might also change their own path and trajectory. So it is very powerful. And I do have to just say Path that one of my favorites in terms of the CBE angle programs as a program life say, Pat ran the English for our moms program, it’s a very powerful program. We just missed each other in Cairo when I went to visit and I sat and met with the younger moms who are part of the English for Our Moms Program.

[0:30:59] So these were young moms [0:31:00] at Al-Azhar University who were protégés of the grander mom and we Path got them into our English program. They took this English program by the time I met with them their English was quite good. And we had a really interesting discussion and one younger mom said to me, ‘did you know the three major religions basically want the same thing? If you really, really get it down to basics?’ and I said ‘yeah that’s absolutely’ and he said ‘I didn’t know that until this program’ because our English teacher who taught the program really tried to bring all aspects of you know what we try to communicate as an open society to them in the classroom. It was wonderful to have this discussion with them and see how much they were open in terms of their own ideas and they… I’ve stayed in touch with a couple of them via email. And one of them actually came to the United States, all of them I think I sat with about [0:32:00] five or six of them that day, wanted to come to the United States to help people understand what

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Islam really is. And so it was a really wonderful program and I talk about it a lot but it had administered this program in Cairo.

Female Speaker: [0:32:14] Well and also we have in the audience a previous public affairs officer, Jim Bullock who was part of establishing some of these programs every time. And GW hosted some of those Imams this fall when they came on their exchange visit. So this audience here all had in some small way a part to play and Lola got to meet them.

Evan Ryan: [0:32:37] I think it’s a wonderful… It’s a wonderful example of the power of exchange and English language and yes for sure.

Female Speaker: [0:32:45] Well I’d like to open the floor for some questions from the audience. I have a lot more of my own but I know you’ve been waiting for the opportunity to ask about cultural exchanges, cultural programs, or other issues related [0:33:00] to public diplomacy. So please and especially students. Yes?

Male Speaker: [0:33:07] What’s your day to day kind of work?

Evan Ryan: [0:33:10] Oh good question. Day to day work really does involve and Jordan will be able to help us with this, Jordan who works with me… really involves meeting with exchange participants. I would say that’s the number one thing that we do. We have… it is the state department so there are many meetings. I have never been to so many meetings before till I came to the state department, so that has been an education for me. So there are just standard meetings that happen weekly. But for me, the bulk of my work involves actually not so dissimilar from this, being in a room and being able to speak to exchange participants and answer their questions. And for me I also like to ask them questions about what they thought of the United States before coming here, what they think now and it’s always really interesting to get their perspectives.

Female Speaker: [0:33:55] Yes lots of meetings at the state department. So if you ever become a Foreign Service [0:34:00] officer or you work for the state department, you’ll spend half of your time in meetings. Yes, yes. Introduce yourself if you could please as well.

Female Speaker: [0:34:09] [IB] I’m a grad student at [IB], I’m just wondering sport is really powerful not only for diplomacy but for social change experience know more about these sports programs.

Evan Ryan: [0:34:21] So we have a sports office in our bureau, the bureau of educational and cultural affairs and it is… you’re 100% right. Right now we probably… they’re probably about eight people in the office, so it’s a pretty robust office and we deal with everything you can imagine. We

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have young; I think one of the first groups I met with were a group of young Iraqi girls who were soccer players came here for a few weeks. They went to North Carolina to take part in a soccer camp and then came back through Washington, and it’s just what we like [0:35:00] about the sports programs as you point out is they are empowering, they teach you team work, leadership, they really… I find from my own background growing up and playing sports and still disciplined. I was much better when I was playing sports and getting my homework done than I was not. And so there are a really powerful ways to help open minds that might not have been exposed to this before. And one of my other… this is what you find if you’re in my job, you have just lots of great anecdotes that come your way because you’re dealing with people on a daily basis. But we have soccer coaches that we brought here from the Middle East. And they were here for a three week program to learn soccer coaching skills. This is what’s really compelling about these programs is we’re not preaching to them in any fashion. They’re just here to learn how to coach soccer in a better way.

[0:35:53] And at the beginning of the program, this one coach who was here wasn’t thinking about the fact that the [0:36:00] interpreter could obviously understand everything he was saying. And he talked about how much he hated America. And how much he just came for the free trip but it was a horrible place, corrupt. Three weeks later the trip ends and he goes up to the program person and says ‘how can I move here and bring my family?’ And that’s purely just through soccer coaching. We did not say anything. That’s not what we do. We really try to give these participants just a sense of being here. Having a real American experience and sports is great tool in which we can do that. But I’ll also just to get back to the Iraqi girls who are playing soccer. We have a program on the ESPNW partnership, I referenced it as a program of global sports mentoring for women where we have about 20 women here from around the world, it’s a global program, and they are placed with a mentor at [0:37:00] the WNBA, you know we’ve had people working with any kind of sports company you can think of.

[0:37:09] We’ve also had them placed with other companies: more time judged related to sports. And they’re mentored. They have a project that they’re working on that they want to implement when they return home and most of these women really do choose to try to use sports as a tool to empower young girls back in their homes. Because sports is a real way to you know I can use pun, you know level the playing field and make people feel more a part of a community and also really it is empowering. It does, you feel an energy if you’re part of a team. You feel like you’re able to accomplish things you might not have felt before. So we do have many ways that also I mean we also have sports envoys, we had Dikembe Mutombo in our office the other day which was really exciting for many

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of us [0:38:00]. And he’s a sports envoy for us. So he travels for us and you know will help coach basketball with young children and we sent right around the time of the world cup, we did soccer clinics in Brazil with sports envoys, and for but we went to sort of the more impoverished rural areas to host these soccer clinics. So these are really getting back to the cultural heritage methods, the same thing. These are ways for us to communicate our values and communicate our respect without being very overt or trying to preach or trying to send a specific message, because it’s really about the experience.

Female Speaker: [0:38:41] What I also love about these programs is that the envoys or the organizations that assist you with our international visitor leadership program many of them are either volunteers or they’re doing it for just the cost of hotel and travel. We’re not paying [0:39:00] millions of dollars for these envoys. So it’s a way that Americans give back and I think that really is heartening to me when I see it. Yes in the back there please introduce yourself.

Miguel Tavera: [0:39:18] My name’s Miguel Tavera, I’m a junior in the Elliott School. And in the past couple of years educational programs such as President Obama’s 100,000 Strong and Latin America Initiative and several different programs with the Mexican government for example focus on STEM oriented careers. So what role does your office have in balancing cultural exchanges with more technical STEM focused ones?

Evan Ryan: [0:39:45] That’s an excellent question. We’re finding more and more when I interact with either people here at embassies from around or in my travels, very much STEM is in demand and working with our sound programs related to STEM is a big focus. I actually [0:40:00] took part in the higher education dialogue with Mexico, and that was exactly what their hope was, was two things. To make sure that they could send students here to science and technological programs, or technical programs and also see if we can send professors in partnership down to universities in Mexico who could really focus on STEM down there. So those are the ways that they’ve asked us to work with them. But we have tried to respond to that need by establishing programs, and we have a really wonderful program too I can say. One is tech-women that; was such, such a success that we also now have a tech girls program.

[0:40:43] And really what tech women is, we bring people, and it started off in the meaner region as well, bringing women to silicon valley where they are placed with a mentor in a company in Silicon Valley for about five weeks. They are there day in and day out with their mentor [0:41:00] learning about the business, and it can be all aspects of the business. We've had people who come over to learn marketing skills, but, we've also had engineers; everything you can think of related to someone trying to

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start a tech business. And they then come to Washington where we all meet with them and they get a chance to talk about what they’ve learned. And this was such a success we expanded it and started a girls program in the summer, alright when high school age girls here. And they come actually to DC, and we place them here in Google in DC, and they get to learn tech here, right here in Washington. But we do find that at STEM is really in demand; we are the leaders in terms of education in this area, and we do you know we have the real pioneers out in Silicon Valley who are leading this new frontier. And so we do finds that countries are really interested in engaging us in this way. So in addition to the tech programs and in addition to trying [0:42:00] to help countries who want to connect and partner with universities here, we try to think of other creative ways we can engage people in the STEM area.

Female Speaker: [0:42:14] Usually STEM as well is one of the things that most people around the world think so positively of about the united states but whether we bring someone to speak overseas or to go on one of these exchange programs we have a lot of interest and a lot of people who want to engage and so they are very successful.

Female Speaker: [0:42:38] There's a question in the back, the woman in the back please?

Saba Abbas: [0:42:44] Thank you. I'm Saba Abbas and I'm a graduate student at school of international affairs at the American university, and my question is regarding public diplomacy as a profession rather than just exchanges. And like you said that [0:43:00] public diplomacy is all about building trust and mutual understanding in these relationships. And you also mentioned that there is I mean work is being done so that public diplomacy is in direct line with foreign policy. But I mean as you all know public diplomacy is more of, I don’t know this isn’t coming on, I'm sorry about that. So public diplomacy is a long term process but what if, I mean what happens when the foreign policy goes vis-à-vis a certain country are in clash with the essence of public diplomacy for instance there is this policy, if I talk about drone attack, and it’s a very sensitive issue in certain countries, so how does it make your job difficult balancing or phasing these tensions, the seemingly tensions. Because strategies like drone attack they might undermine those bridges [0:44:00] that we are all trying to build.

Evan Ryan: [0:44:04] That’s a very good question, for us and our purposes, I can speak to my own bureau; I know exactly what you speak of. We just tried to really just maintain a very robust public diplomacy presence from our exchange perspective or whether the cultural heritage, we do everything we can to maintain that robust presence hoping that we get to a point where we are on the same page you know but it’s an excellent question

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and there's not an easy answer for it. But I can tell you from our perspective, for instance, the largest Fulbright program that we have, do you know the answer to that? Exactly, the largest by far number of Fulbrighters here in the United States are from Pakistan, and that’s something that we will continue. So for [0:45:00] our purpose we just want to maintain as robust a presence and public diplomacy that we can, even when things are not ideal as you would point out.

Female Speaker: [0:45:11] Thank you for your question. Yes

Wang: [0:45:16] Thank you ma’am; my name is C. Wang, I'm a brass student of SMBA. All your fantastic programs are really good, but they are not, I think they are almost impossible without the financial support. When you try to ask the US Congress for financial support, I wonder if you have come across questions like this, why don’t; we ask private organizations or companies to handle those expensive programs. I know that an MBA has a regular exchange programs with China, why don’t we ask the private companies to handle them.

Evan Ryan: [0:45:52] So, we do. And sure I guess that’s a simple answer, what we do is we have [0:46:00] programs, especially when it comes to Fulbright, the amazing thing about the Fulbright program, and I speak mostly of western Europe is, our input in terms of US government money is actually rather small and surprisingly small. People would be surprised by that, compared to private sector money that has come in because of the prestige of the Fulbright program. So we've now tried to use that model in our programs, our larger exchange programs in our bureau. The ESPNW program and the Fortune program that I mentioned, that’s a cost share where they actually are sharing the cost. We are not yet at a place where we have a program that’s solely funded by a private sector entity, but we do have several programs, Fulbright and otherwise where there is a significant cost share with a private sector partner. And we are trying to move more in that direction [0:47:00].

[0:47:01] Referencing congress, that’s a very good question, I'm now engaging in congress much, much more than I've had to before. The good news for me is congress is really supportive of exchange programs; there is true bipartisan support for these programs. I was really heartened to see that, they all really, the people that I've engaged with on the hill really support it, they really understand it, they understand the benefits; but there's also a very basic piece of it too, which is our exchange programs bring people into districts, which brings revenue in. so that’s the other thing that we found very interesting, is that congress is largely supportive of our programs for a variety of reasons. But one of them is that they understand that there are students coming in and you know studying at universities in their districts and paying rent and so, it’s been great for me

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to be able to go to congress and have very largely positive [0:48:00] conversations. Yes.

Noah Youssef:[0:48:09] Hi, my name is Noah Youssef, I'm a senior at the Elliott school here at GW, and my question to you is that of course around the world there are certain communities that don’t hold maybe less than positive views about the United States, so I was wondering if you could possibly elaborate on how do you have exchange programs with students or with business professionals, and how do you operate those programs but try and keep the politics and the decision making I guess separate from those programs and keep it more about just building one on one relations?

Evan Ryan: [0:48:51] So I can think of a few examples but what I think about is when I sit and talk to exchange participants. What in really do is let them ask me any question [0:49:00] that they may want to ask, and we've had a whole variety of questions. And then we also, when exchange participants come through here, we make sure to give them the opportunity to hear from the regional bureau, basically the regional bureau representative who will talk to them just about general US policy in the region. So what I do think we have done well is basically shared information without engaging in debate. If they have wanted to, we can. I have to say it’s been very rare for me to have someone, and I welcome it, but I haven’t had a lot of people challenge us here on an exchange on that front. It would 100% be welcome, we really tell them they can raise any topic and they can talk to us about anything.

[0:49:56] So for us I think our main mission when we really try to [0:50:00] engage and speak with these participants is to just share as much information as possible again, because by doing so we really try to show that this is a very open society, we will be very frank with you about here’s where we are from a policy perspective, here’s where we are from you know a perspective on the exchange and the program that we have you on. It’s interesting though, when I think of when I've really had some interesting engagements from students or participants. I met with a group of young leaders and one of them was from Yemen, and he was really interested in learning. He asked me very specific questions about federalism, never quite understood that concept and thought he was very interested in it, thought he understood it based on what we were describing it thought it could be a good model.

[0:50:52] So what we try to do is answer those questions without saying that’s what you should do you know that’s really the objective, it’s to share information and be open [0:51:00] and give them as much knowledge as they really are interested in learning. And without preaching and without really directing, but they are always welcome to engage us; we really welcome that.

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Female Speaker: [0:51:12] I think we also still have some programs in the citizen’s exchange as well, where the state department gives grants to American organizations to operate exchanges in specific countries, and so it becomes a partner to partner relationship, more so than involvement of the state department directly, which sometimes works in these situations I think.

Evan Ryan: [0:51:36] Exactly, when it’s more delicate.

Female Speaker: [0:51:38] Yeah. Well I think we have enough time for maybe one or two more questions, so the young lady in the front.

Michelle Dresdner: [0:51:46] My name is Michelle Dresdner, I'm a former [IB] I was wondering what some of the more interesting questions you’ve gotten from high school exchange students are.

Evan Ryan: [0:51:56] Wow, I love the high school exchange students [0:52:00], they do, I love… we were talking about this before we started; I think the high school programs are fantastic. We have programs with, our Yes student program brings I think about 700 students annually here. The high school students from Muslim majority countries here for an academic year of high school. And it’s really amazing to be able to engage with these students. And then we have the Flex program, and that used to be Russia’s, no longer. That program was actually cancelled by Putin. But it’s the Russia periphery countries are still a part of that program, same thing, just a different audience. So, they are really great programs because I think when you reach someone at an age like that when they are in high school, it really like can have a big impact on their ideas about what's possible for them and the way they view the world. In terms of, I think, I have one favorite probably from the high school students, and that was a young man from Pakistan [0:53:00].

[0:53:01] And there wasn’t so much a question as he really described his experience in such a fantastic way. He was in redwood California in high school, and he decided to enter the debate contest. And as he told it, he won the debate contest for the whole high school, and the girl that came in second; he took her to the prom. And he just was so amazed by this US high school experience, and he really, it was just, he was beaming talking about how he won the debate contest, and they debated all sorts of you know issues so he really was given a chance to see that nothing is off the table here in the United states. And then the prom was a completely new experience for him too and he also, when his host family took him to the local LGBT parade, and he was fascinated, he said [0:54:00] I didn’t know you all actually had a parade! So no but this is all eye opening, and at that age, utterly transformative. And for us to look at that student and think oh my; gosh, what is; he going to be, the possibilities for him when he returns

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home are endless. For sure we think he’ll end up in some area of leadership and doing something really compelling, but he told; he described his experience so well. And so he is my most memorable high school student.

Female Speaker: [0:54:32] I remember when the first president Obama runs; we had exchange students on the undergraduate level who; came back from their experience of the year having been on election campaigns, they had volunteered. It was again the most transformative experience that they had ever had was being part of that whole process, that was so excited.

Evan Ryan: [0:54:55] Exactly and even this past year with the mid-term election like I mean honestly [0:55:00] I get to meet with participants all the time, and in the lead up to the midterm elections, talking to exchange students I urged them to turn on their TVs and watch the commercials that they would see here. And just get a sense of how, I mean it’s all fair game here, you can put anything and you can…but that we remain peaceful in that process.

Female Speaker: [0:55:22] Yes, yes definitely.

Evan Ryan: [0:55:23] But you can really, that you can debate and air and disagree and, but in the process everybody remains peaceful, I mean that was an important piece.

Female Speaker: [0:55:34] One last question. Okay.

Francis: [0:55:44] My name is Francis; I'm a freshman at the Elliott School. So you mentioned earlier a disparity between Americans going abroad and people from abroad coming to America, how are you going to advice more Americans to travel abroad?

Evan Ryan: [0:56:00] So one of the ways we’re trying to do that is actually through our language programs. Various people have suggested to me oh what you need to do is actually try to get middle schools, elementary schools, high schools to actually offer more critical languages. It’s very hard for us to do on a decentralized education system. But we do have our language programs, the National Security Language Program, the Critical Language Scholars, and what we try to do is through these programs enhance their language skills because language is a big barrier in terms of study abroad. But there are many other; this is why we are actually forming a US study abroad office, there are other barriers and we've really tried to dig into what is preventing US students from travelling, going overseas. Many students, and I always use myself as an example because I studied in London when I was in college, I thought it would be too expensive. When I actually decided to research it anyway, it turned out to really be [0:57:00] equal to what I would have been paying in college here in the US.

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[0:57:05] So expense is a hurdle and we have a Gillman Program, which is a wonderful program where it’s basically a scholarship to study overseas and its, but only program recipients are only eligible to apply for the program so that…for else we really want study abroad to be something people can look at universally. And then we also, in the US abroad study office that we’re launching soon, we’re hoping to have the ability to really connect with universities around the country and if we find the faculty is encouraging students to study abroad, that is a big piece of it, really trying to find ways that universities can make this something that students aspire to do. There are some schools that do this incredibly well that really study abroad becomes a, just, it’s just wants done and its part of the culture [0:58:00] of that campus. So were really looking at those schools and what is it that they’ve done that has really engineered it so that students really look for those opportunities. And then we’re just going to try to raise awareness because without a doubt, when you know looking at all of you, when you think of your market ability once you're out in the world and looking at the job market, you’ve had a study abroad experience and at work you have not for sure employers who are going to look at students who've had that study abroad experience, that kind of, that global perspective.

[0:58:35] I'm going to get it wrong but there's a Fortune, I think it’s Fortune study or a Forbes study, where they actually… Forbes, where they polled CEOs, the top CEOs and I think it was 65% preferred to hire someone who’d had a study abroad experience. So those are the sorts of things that we want to communicate and [0:59:00] get out there and let people know. It’s more critical than ever.

Female Speaker: [0:59:03] Well thank you so much; I think you have the best job in the state department actually. Certainly the most fun, you meet the most interesting people and we certainly will spread the word wide about the value of exchanges. This speech will be video cast and it will be on the website so I think; that will be a good way for more students in this very cold weather to get access to this information. But thank you so much for coming tonight and braving the cold weather to come and meet us, and to talk to us. Thank you.

Evan Ryan: Thank you; thank you all for having me, thank you.

[0:59:50] [RECORDING STOPPED]

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