For the past 49 years, Seminars International has been committed to working with education abroad, alumni, performing arts groups, and faith-based groups as they teach and learn across borders. We are committed to the idea that interacting with other cultures and peoples and traveling with an open mind will contribute to a just and peaceful world. We continue to believe strongly that building connections with others around the world is an essential means to develop future leaders committed to working with other countries and cultures and a powerful way to eradicate cultural mistrust that comes from separating ourselves from each other.
Seminars International cares deeply about the safety and security of our faculty leaders and program participants. And we are very concerned that the impact of the January 2017 U.S. Executive Order on Immigration may impact negatively on that safety and hinder our mission to encourage openness towards other cultures and religions.
We stand together with our colleagues and friends in the international education community, particularly in support of international students and scholars and in support of our shared goals of international education.
We believe the late Senator Fulbright s belief in international educational exchange is more relevant now than ever:
International educational exchange is the most significant current project designed to continue the process of humanizing mankind to the point, we would hope, that men can learn to live in peace eventually even to cooperate in constructive activities rather than compete in a mindless contest of mutual destruction .We must try to expand the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy and perception, and there is no way of doing that except through education.