Come to Washington, D.C., November 1 through 4 to experience the Fulbright Association’s 30th Anniversary Conference—an international, multidisciplinary, intergenerational meeting that incorporates a wealth of ideas from members, visiting Fulbrighters, and representatives of sister Fulbright alumni organizations abroad.  Please see the conference schedule at http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2007/program.htm.   Please visit http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2007/registration.htm to download a registration form and register today!
 
The conference will provide participants with ideas and information on important issues and will facilitate professional and social networking.  In addition to plenary sessions, roundtable discussions, a poster session, and task force meetings will enable alumni and visiting Fulbrighters to engage with each other and to share information on their current work.  Please visit http://www.fulbright.org/conference/2007/callforproposals.doc for guidelines on submitting proposals for facilitated roundtable discussions and/or the poster session.

The theme “People & the Planet” results from a careful review of comments submitted by 335 Fulbright Association members, visiting Fulbrighters, and representatives from sister Fulbright alumni organizations abroad.  It is adapted from a post by Bhekie S. Gule, a visiting Fulbrighter from Swaziland who is studying at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.  Bheki wrote, in part, “The seminar should discuss how best to ensure that every global citizen can make decisions that will ensure the planet’s survival, as well as be good for all people concerned or affected.”  To see the breadth of issues concerning Fulbrighters, please visit http://30.fulbright.org/2007/04/10/call-for-ideas-on-fulbright-association-30th-anniversary-conference-theme.aspx.

We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Luis Fernando Aldana, a visiting Fulbrighter from Guatemala studying at Iowa State University.  He took a discussion on data mining from his data base class and developed a spread sheet of blog topics that became the basis for tracking suggestions received. 
Climate change, environmental challenges, and conservation were the subject of 122 posts and emails.  Development was a close second at 105.  These results helped us decide on the theme “People & the Planet.”  Other significant clusters concerned globalization, cultural communication and understanding, terrorism, conflict, education, peace, the Fulbright Program, health, migration, international affairs, the media and communications, religion, and technology.

The rich variety of ideas prompted us to implement suggestions on conference session formats by artist Marsha Conn (Mexico 1999); by Steven Lund (Slovakia 2003), professor of English as a second language, Arizona Western College; and by Merryl Kravitz (Lithuania 2001), professor of secondary education, New Mexico Highlands University.  To enable discussion of more topics and to promote interaction among participants, we have scheduled the session for facilitated roundtable discussions and the poster session.
 
Please register for the conference and enjoy the knowledge and fellowship that the Fulbright community offers.  We look forward to greeting you on November 1.  With best regards.

Jane L. Anderson, CAE
Executive Director
Fulbright Association