Today was another day of interviewing Fulbright candidates, so I don't have any new pictures. Once again, I'll provide pictures from Kim's camera. She was out and about.

The 42 applicants we met over the two days all came from the humanities, broadly defined. 17 (40 percent) were from architecture. Another 8 (19 percent) were in law. The remainder included a variety of fields such as anthropology, fine arts and economics.

The Fulbright administration loves it when we come up with a diverse group, and our rankings resulted in just what they wanted. The 15 candidates we selected represented seven different universities. In spite of the overwhelming percentage from architecture and law, our final choices included eight different academic fields.

I learned a little about Greek universities as well. Like the U.S., grade point averages from one university are not necessarily comparable to another.

One of my frustrations as Fulbright Program Adviser at Ball State has been the lack of strong recommendations some students have received from professors, and it's no different in Greece. The professor might state that a student was outstanding but then provide no evidence, or write some brief letter that implies the professor doesn't really know the student at all.

I was tremendously impressed with the wealth of international experience some of these students have already had. They've all done some traveling, and almost all of them have spent a semester studying in another country, in another language. Obviously to apply for a Fulbright they must have strong English skills, but many spent a semester in Austria, Germany, France, Italy or Spain (England, too, but that didn't involve a third language). I know what a challenge it is to get U.S. students to spend a semester in another country - and that's when we offer them classes in English. I think these young people are very brave (I never studied overseas as a student).

I really believe in what Fulbright does, and not just because they're paying my rent right now. I think Senator Fulbright had it right all those years ago when he established the program. I know that I still have friends in Slovenia 14 years after I did my first Fulbright there, and I believe there may be a few Slovenes who believe that Americans are good people because of our interactions - OK, because of their interactions with KIM, but nonetheless, the point is the same. I believe the Greek students who get the opportunity to study in the US are the future leaders of Greece, and our investment in them is worth a lot. For what it costs us to bring them to study for a year, we couldn't maintain a military base here for a week. Soft diplomacy is a very effective form of international relations.