UNC Hosts Rep. David Price to Discuss Federal Funding for Global Education
October 11, 2021UNC Global Affairs
Representative David Price with the international education roundtable participants. (Photo by Ingrid Smith).
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill held a roundtable discussion about federal funding for global education with U.S. Representative David Price on Monday, Sept. 20, at the FedEx Global Education Center. Price, a former Morehead Scholar and member of UNC-Chapel Hill’s class of 1961, is a recognized foreign policy leader in Congress and a champion for international education.
UNC-Chapel Hill’s Office of Federal Affairs organized the event, which featured students and faculty who have received federal funding to pursue global education and research opportunities, as well as staff who administer these programs. Price heard from representatives of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Russian Flagship Program, launched in 2020 with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Griffin McGuire ’21, will study Russian remotely and in-person in Kazakhstan during his capstone year in the Russian Flagship Program. McGuire shared his dream with Price of becoming a U.S. diplomat. “Anything that I can use my Russian language skills to participate in a process of improving relations between Russia and the United States would be ideal,” he said in a separate interview.
Leaders from the Carolina Asia Center and Center for European Studies — two of UNC-Chapel Hill’s five U.S. Department of Education-funded Title VI National Resource Centers for area and language studies — discussed the centers’ efforts preparing graduates for careers in diplomacy and national security and offering resources for K-12 and community college educators.
Aditi Kharod ’21, a first year of UNC-Chapel Hill’s TransAtlantic Masters Program, received a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) award to pursue advanced study of Arabic language next year at Grenoble University in France. Kharod told Price that the federal funding will help her focus on her studies by relieving any financial worries.
Marcia Van Riper from the School of Nursing spoke about the lasting research connections she made with a university in Spain thanks to an award from the Fulbright Program, which is funded by the U.S. State Department.
“These programs—along with study abroad, global internships and research, and globally-focused degree programs—are for all UNC students,” said Heather Ward, associate provost for global affairs. “That’s our Global Guarantee—Carolina’s promise that a global education is available to every student. Federal funding makes this possible.”
Price advocates for increased funding for international education programs. In 2019, he co-founded the Congressional Caucus on American Languages, a bipartisan effort to support and enhance foreign language competency and international education among students and professionals across the United States. In April 2021, Price reintroduced a bipartisan bill to reauthorize international education programs. The Advancing International and Foreign Language Education Act would support world language and international education programs at colleges and universities.