Thank you, Chairman Vest, for that very kind introduction. I am pleased to be here among so many of America�s and the world�s most prestigious leaders in the field of education. And I welcome the opportunity to speak to so many talented people gathered together to discuss the many challenges and competing interests that vie for our attention each week in this globalizing, fast-paced world.

I often use the metaphor of the kaleidoscope to describe today�s world.  We all remember when we were kids and we would turn that marvelous little tube to the light and watch the crystals coalesce and separate and coalesce again, forming beautiful new patterns.  Our world is like that today � and I�m certain the patterns that form and reform for you at your universities are every bit as challenging as those that confront a secretary of state.

In meeting those challenges, I want you to know that you have a powerful ally in America�s President. One of his top priorities is education. President Bush understands how crucial it is to get education right.  If a nation does not have an educated workforce, an educated electorate, an educated people, that nation will soon be lost in the demanding world of today and tomorrow.

Such education calls for a system that starts at the elementary and secondary levels where the all-important, brick-and-mortar foundation is laid.  In that respect, we know we have a challenge ahead of us in America. We have to improve our elementary and secondary education system. And while we do it, we have to be sure we leave no child behind.

We cannot just reach out to the elite, to the well-off, to the young people we know will succeed, important though this is. We have to reach out as well to the youngsters in all of our societies who are not so privileged, not so able to step up to our collective tables and partake of the educational banquet we offer to them.

Before returning to government, I was Chairman of a group called America�s Promise � The Alliance for Youth. The mission of America�s Promise is to help create five crucial conditions in every disadvantaged child�s life: a healthy start, a safe place, a caring adult, a marketable skill, and a chance to give back, to render service to the community.

In our efforts to create these conditions some of the most important partners we recruited to help us were universities and colleges. We called them universities and colleges of promise. I got the idea in 1998 when I met with the President of the University of Southern California, Steven Sample. President Sample is here tonight I believe.

Howard University was easy to recruit to our alliance. I was on the Board. I was also Chairman of Howard�s Academic Excellence Committee.  And the university system in Minnesota put every campus in the state into its concept of a university of promise. And I am grateful to President Mark Yudof for that overwhelming response.

At the end of the day, we must ensure that our educational systems from bottom to top embrace all of our children because we will need every one of our citizens in the challenging decades ahead. So our countries must reach out to each other and share and exchange ideas and students and best practices.

In this respect, the American Association of Community Colleges has some exceptionally effective programs. With funding from USAID, this group promotes partnerships between community colleges in America and institutions of higher learning in other countries.

A two-year branch of Kent State University, for example, is working with Tashkent State University in Uzbekistan to provide education in environmental technology. And Columbus State Community College in Ohio is partnered with the Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology in Tanzania to create an Information Technology institute.

And there are other ways to share and to partner for wider and better education. During the 1999-2000 academic year, for example, America hosted over half a million foreign students in its colleges and universities. And I know everyone in this audience is familiar with America�s flagship effort, the Fulbright Program. Both America and the host countries contribute to this program. It is without doubt the finest example of educational excellence in America�s scholarship kitbag.  A quarter of a million people have benefited from a Fulbright experience since the program was begun 55 years ago.

A very small sampling of the program�s alumni includes Brazil�s president Fernando Cardoso, Intel CEO Craig Barrett, writer Eudora Welty, opera star Renee Fleming, AAU President Dr. Nils Hasselmo, and Dr. Ruth Simmons, Brown University�s incoming president. Not to mention more than twenty Fulbright alumni who are Nobel laureates.

Such programs as these provide opportunities for intellectual and personal growth to thousands of American and international scholars, students, teachers and professionals each year.

They also encourage and sustain democratic practices, build mutual understanding, create a cohort of future leaders who understand each other�s countries from the inside, and promote long-term linkages between institutions here and abroad.

Such cooperation ultimately strengthens democracy and the bonds between nations. And these "people to people" programs have taken on increased significance in the globalized, interdependent, information-based world in which we live.

The U.S. government does not have a monopoly on such programs. Nor do we have the requisite wisdom to determine all the future exchange programs that may be essential to building a better, more educated world.  That�s why we need to proceed in strategic partnership with you. Together, we need to develop programs that can meet the multiple needs of nations, their peoples, and their institutions. And one of the most pressing needs is for engineers and scientists and computer specialists.

The National Research Council produced an excellent report for the State Department in 1999. One of its conclusions was that 13 of the 16 stated objectives of American foreign policy encompassed science, technology, or health considerations.

So it is very critical that we place the proper emphasis on science and technology, on mathematics and the other skills and fields of knowledge that contribute so decisively to shaping this transforming world.

In the United States, we now recognize that we are not producing enough graduates in science and engineering to fill the needs of our scientific and technological communities. That�s why we have to borrow so many from overseas!

And I want to thank all of you here who have had a hand in educating or exchanging some of these wonderful people, because without them the prolonged economic success we�ve had for over a decade would have been impossible.

But we have to do more within our own educational structure to make up for this deficit.

A great example of how to do this is the International Science and Engineering Fair.

Over a million students in grades nine through twelve from all over the world compete in regional science fairs. More than 1200 of these young people, from more than 40 different countries, will earn the chance to compete at the ISEF next month in San Jose, California for $3 million in scholarships and prizes.

And for the past five years, Intel Corporation has added its prestige and money to the sponsorship and the support of this exciting event.

This science and engineering fair is a superb way to collaborate internationally, and it�s an excellent example of non-profit and corporate partnership as well.

Most of you will likely have scouts at this international fair, looking over the scene for prospective students. If you don�t have such a reconnaissance planned, you should.

Science doesn�t have a country. It doesn�t have any borders. And science today gets around with the speed of light.

Indeed, most knowledge is just a click away.  And the fact that knowledge moves with the speed of light means a very different context in which to educate -- a very exciting, thrilling, and dramatically changed context.

I know that all of you are dealing with that change right now, trying to maximize this ongoing revolution for your purposes of education and collaboration.  Whether it�s distance-learning, web-casting to multiple audiences, exchanging data, or simply conducting research, the Internet has opened up whole new possibilities.

Possibilities that all of you are on the cutting edge of discovering, exploiting, and turning into educational progress and advantage.  This is important work because your public and private institutions are the principal source of the fundamental knowledge that drives, nourishes and constantly refreshes the innovation and technology of our Information Age.

And your institutions are also playing an important role in foreign policy.  One of the President�s fundamental goals is to build constructive relationships with other nations that will contribute to achieving a peaceful and prosperous world.

In seeking to create closer ties among the world�s great universities through events such as tonight�s dinner, you are building those relationships. Moreover, there are many challenges of a global nature that are common to all of our countries -- the oceans, weather and climate, infectious diseases, natural disasters, and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

These challenges are becoming major elements of the world�s 21^st century foreign policy agenda. Since your institutions are the basic source of the new knowledge that must be drawn upon to address these challenges, you are intimately involved in this additional aspect of foreign policy. So I am pleased that you have chosen to come to the State Department this evening.

This event will be a stunning success if all of you leave this building with an even greater sense of the importance of your work in educating tomorrow�s leaders -- the leaders who will eventually build the peaceful and prosperous world that we all look forward to.  Go forth from here and deliver this vital message to all the educators the world over.

Thank you