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Seventeenth U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission Meeting Exchange Of Diplomatic Notes Renewing U.S.-Mexico Commission For Educational And Cultural Exchange Fact Sheet released by the Office of the Spokesman, May 18, 2000

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Rosario Green will sign and exchange Diplomatic Notes to extend the agreement which established the U.S.-Mexican Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange (the Fulbright Commission). The new agreement extends the life of the Commission by 10 years.

The U.S.-Mexico Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange was established in 1990 to oversee the Fulbright Program between the United States and Mexico. With an annual budget of $7 million, funded by both governments and supported by U.S. and Mexican universities and businesses, the Commission annually exchanges over 300 scholars, students, professionals and teachers. It is governed by a board of public representatives and private citizens from both countries. Its grantees are called Fulbright-Garcia-Robles scholars, in honor of the program's founder, U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, and Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize winner Alfonso Garcia-Robles.

Among the Commission's principal activities are a program supported by Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology to send Mexican graduate students in the sciences to the United States for advanced degrees and the Binational Business Program, which brings graduate students from the United States to Mexico for advanced training in business and internships in Mexican companies.

The Fulbright Program, designed to promote mutual understanding between the United States and the rest of the world, resulted from legislation sponsored by Senator J. William Fulbright and signed into law by President Harry Truman on August 1, 1946. It currently encompasses 140 countries and awards approximately 4,500 new grants each year. In 2000, the Congressional appropriation for the Fulbright Program is $105 million and is augmented by $24 million in direct contributions from partner Governments and over $40 million in support from universities in the United States.

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