K-School Receives Grant for Vietnam Fulbright Center

The State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has granted Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (KSG) $1.55 million to continue financing its Vietnam Fulbright Teaching Center.

The award, which was announced Monday by Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54-’56, D-Mass., marks the 10th consecutive year that the Department of State has given partial funding to the program.

Since 1994, the KSG, in cooperation with the University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh City, has run the Vietnamese Fulbright Teaching Center, aiming to educate Vietnamese mid-career professionals in economic and public policy. According to Amy Conly, an administrative assistant at the Kennedy School’s Vietnam Program, the center currently enrolls approximately 80 Vietnamese students in offerings that range from basic courses in micro- and macro-economics to more advanced classes on subjects like “China’s New Economic Strategy” and “Post-Crisis East Asia.”

“We were confident that the self-evident worth of the school in Ho Chi Minh City would be rewarded with the renewal of this grant,” said Julian Chang, the executive director of Asia Programs at the KSG’s Center for Business and Government. “We in Asia Programs and the Kennedy School look forward to working with our partners in Vietnam and across the United States in support of this program and of continued friendly cooperation between Vietnam and the United States.”

A second component of the Vietnam Fulbright program is an academic exchange, which takes about 25 American and 25 Vietnamese students each year.

Kennedy praised the continued funding of the exchange program in a press release Monday, acknowledging both its cultural and academic benefits.

“This wonderful program helps to give U.S. and Vietnamese students an extraordinary opportunity to study abroad and learn from each other,” said the senior Massachusetts senator and brother of the KSG’s namesake. “It exemplifies President Kennedy’s commitment to service and education, and this funding will go a long way to ensure these students have an educational opportunity second to none.”