WThe Bush administration's new focus on international education "feeds beautifully into what we're already doing" at Cornell, according to President Hunter Rawlings. If more funding becomes available in Washington, "you can bet Cornell is going to be there to compete for it," he adds.

Rawlings made his observations during a summit on international education Jan. 5 and 6 at the U.S. State Department. The meeting, hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, included Rawlings and 120 other invited U.S. college and university presidents who focused on ways to enrich American students' understanding of foreign cultures and languages.

Rawlings welcomed the opportunity to meet with administration officials. He added that expanding ties between cultures has been one of Cornell's primary goals for decades.

The event included a series of closed-door workshops with officials from the Departments of Education, State and Defense addressing issues ranging from expanding international exchange programs and improving the visa application process for foreign students to encouraging Americans to study languages and cultures of the Middle East and Asia.

President George W. Bush opened the summit by announcing a new National Security Language Initiative to expand foreign language training.

"This initiative is a broad-gauged initiative that deals with the defense of the country, the diplomacy of the country, the intelligence to defend our country and the education of our people," Bush said. "This program is part of a strategic goal, and that is to protect this country in the short term and protect it in the long term by spreading freedom.

"I've had a little problem with the language in the past," Bush added. "Condi said, 'Come on by, we've got a bunch of university presidents here.' And I said great, just so long as we don't have to compare transcripts."

Cornell has a long history of extensive foreign language offerings, as well as programs through the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies that give students a broad understanding of the languages and cultures of Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America, East Asia, Africa and other regions. Cornell's extensive library holdings make it a prime research destination for foreign scholars.

Around the world, Rawlings said, Cornell is recognized for its global perspective. Recently, the joint master's degree program in hospitality management -- laid out in a 2004 agreement between former Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman and Su Guaning, president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University -- created another avenue for students to explore foreign cultures. And this year's addition of the China and Asia-Pacific Studies program has gone further by providing students with intensive Chinese language courses, a semester in Washington, D.C., and a semester at Peking University in Beijing.

At the summit, Spellings, Rice and Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public affairs and public diplomacy, emphasized the need for more cross-cultural interaction and understanding, comparing its imperatives to the national effort to boost science education after the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite.

"We've done this kind of work before," Rice said. "In the Cold War we faced down an ideology of communism, which believed that human beings could not govern and believed in inexorable historical forces that would triumph. Indeed, freedom and liberty triumphed. But this country made a huge intellectual investment in winning the Cold War."

"Today, we have no symbol as obvious as a Russian satellite to remind us of our global competitors," added Spellings. "But there are many smaller signs fast approaching on the horizon. The world is changing at a rapid pace, and many of our students lack the skills to succeed in the global knowledge economy. ... This is not just an education issue; it's an economic issue, a civic issue, a social issue, a national security issue, and it's everybody's issue."

And it will continue to be a priority at Cornell, Rawlings said. "Cornell is well-known internationally," he said. "We've been very active [in cultural exchange] for 100 years. I would expect us to continue to maintain that. And in the past years we've increased it."

There is still much to do, he said, especially on issues surrounding the visa application process for foreign scholars and the perception of that process abroad. And as the summit closed on Friday, Rawlings said he looks forward to continuing the discussion.

"We're all going to be helped by these programs," he said. "It's been a good dialogue, not a monologue. Concerned people paid attention. They've been all ears. When you put it all together, I see it as a positive step."