Fulbrighters have also been extraordinarily active and successful in the world: 34 have won Nobel prizes; 65 have won Pulitzer prizes; 21 have received MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Awards; 14 have received the presidential medal of freedom, our nation's highest honor.

And Fulbright scholars have generally been successful in ways that advance both American interests and principles -- a Fulbrighter: Armindo Maia, helped lead East Timor's struggle for freedom and democracy; Alejandro Toledo, a shoeshine boy turned economist, and now the president of Peru, was a Fulbright scholar at Stanford.

The success of Fulbrighters far transcends government service. One of the most prominent educators in the United States today and the person who chaired the committee that selected me for this, Dr. Ruth Simmons, President of Brown University, the daughter of a sharecropper, she earned her doctorate from Harvard and won a Fulbright Fellowship to France. She works tirelessly to support education.

Then there's Dr. Najma Najam, from Pakistan, founded the Fatima Jinnah Women's University -- the first and only graduate school for women in her country -- and she did that just two years after her Fulbright award at the University of Pittsburgh.

So many other stories, I could go on and on and on. In the Fulbright Program's 58-year history, more than a quarter of a million Americans and foreign citizens have benefited from this experience. But whether they become prime ministers or poets, scientists or senators, educators or engineers, Fulbrighters have all carried with them a better understanding of cultures other than their own, and as a result, they serve as agents of change, they shape opinions, and they contribute to the advancement of both knowledge and international understanding.

Better understanding among people is not a magic potion. Not all conflicts in the world are solved, or even caused or solved by misunderstandings, some are based on real interests that really conflict.

But we'd be irresponsible not to take full advantage of what President Lincoln called the better angels of human nature. And that's what the Fulbright Program is all about. That's what this award is all about. And that's why I’m so proud to accept it, and I accept it not on my own personal behalf, but on behalf of all the wonderful people in my Department who work in this program.