On May 23, 2007, Senator Feingold (D-Wisc.), along with Senators Coleman (R-Minn.), Casey (D-Penn.), Voinovich (R-Ohio), Menendez (D- N.J.), Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Cochran (R-Miss.), introduced the Global Service Fellowship Program, S 1464 IS. This legislation that aims to support volunteerism by Americans abroad is indicative of the increasing recognition by national leaders that it is important to have an American citizenry educated with global knowledge and skills.

NAFSA will continue to advocate for the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2007, as envisioned by the late Sen. Paul Simon, the Lincoln Commission, and in NAFSA’s own task force report, Securing America’s Future, a Global Education for a Global Age, to establish a national program to make study abroad the norm, rather than the exception, at the undergraduate level.

If passed and funded, the Simon Act will present the most exciting opportunity the field of study abroad has ever known. The grants awarded through the Foundation would dramatically increase the number of U.S. students participating in study abroad, and diversify the types of students going abroad as well as the locations to which they travel. The definition of study abroad in the Simon legislation is intentionally broad enough to include students who wish to work or intern abroad.

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