FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Who earns a doctorate? More women, more foreigners, more minorities
The number of research doctorate degrees awarded by U.S. institutions in 2013 grew by 3.5 percent over the previous year, a single-year increase that has only been exceeded twice in the past two decades, according to a new report from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).
The report, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2013, presents data on degree recipients--broken down by categories including citizenship, sex, race and ethnicity, and field of study. NCSES provides detailed data tables and interactive charts for readers to explore online.
The report addresses six key questions: Who earns a U.S doctorate? Which fields attract students? What influences the path to the doctorate? What are the postgraduation trends? What draws students to an institution? And how do expenses and employment outcomes differ? Understanding those characteristics is necessary to make informed improvements in the country's doctoral education system.
The report's findings include the following:
Women earned 46 percent of all doctorates in 2013, and they have earned a majority of all doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens and permanent residents since 2002.
The proportion of doctorates awarded to black or African American students rose from 4.5 percent in 1993 to 6.4 percent in 2013; over the same period, doctorates awarded to Hispanics or Latinos rose from 3.4 percent to 6.3 percent.
Ten countries accounted for 70 percent of the doctorates awarded to temporary visa holders from 2003 to 2013 and the top three--China, India and South Korea--accounted for more than half.
The science and engineering fields accounted for 74 percent of the doctorates awarded in 2013, a substantially larger share than the 65 percent from 10 years earlier.
In every broad science and engineering field, the proportion of 2013 doctorate recipients who reported definite commitments for employment or postdoctorate study was at or near a 25-year-low; for non-S&E fields, that proportion reached a 20-year low.
The report is the latest presentation of an annual census of individuals who in 2013 received research doctorate degrees. The survey is sponsored by NSF, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education.
Please visit the NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) for more reports and other products.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Rob Margetta, NSF
Program Contacts
Mark K. Fiegener, NSF
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2015, its budget is $7.3 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 48,000 competitive proposals for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $626 million in professional and service contracts yearly.
Showing posts with label EDUCATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDUCATION. Show all posts
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Saturday, May 2, 2015
REMARKS AT FORTUNE/U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT GLOBAL WOMEN'S MENTORING PARTNERSHIP
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
04/29/2015 09:58 PM EDT
Remarks at the 10th Annual Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women's Mentoring Partnership
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Benjamin Franklin Room
Washington, DC
April 29, 2015
Thank you very, very much, Evan. Thank you very, very much, Pattie. Thanks so much for doing this and for Fortune’s commitment to all of this. And thank you, all of you, good evening. And I apologize profusely; I gather you’ve been sitting here waiting to eat, right? Anyway, I am sorry. I was held up in the place where Tina works, called the White House – (laughter) – where we were having a long discussion about one of our trouble spots in the world. And I’m really happy to be here. This is not a trouble spot. (Laughter.)
I want to thank the members of Congress who are here. I guess they’re spread around. I don’t see them all sitting at one table. I see Nita over here. But Representatives Debbie Dingell, Nita Lowey who’s here, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Maxine Walters, I want to thank – Waters – I want to thank them for their tremendous contribution. They are powerful women, let me tell you, especially Nita’s got my budget. (Laughter and applause.)
But thank you for the hard work that you do every single day. Honestly, we really appreciate it. And thank you to the Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios. I mentioned to her she’s got her name on every dollar around the country. She said, “I’m watching that money really carefully.”
And Tina Tchen, what a great job you do. Thank you, you’re a delight to work with and we really appreciate everything that you and the First Lady are accomplishing. Thank you very much. We’re excited to have all of you with us on this extraordinary floor of the State Department. This is, I think you know, the Ben Franklin Room. It’s a special room. That’s Ben over there above the fireplace, and the other Ben, my dog, who is the diplo-mutt, is downstairs waiting for me to take him home so he can eat, too. So I’ve held everybody up tonight. (Laughter.) He’s not talking to me.
The most powerful women. We’re in the Ben Franklin Room, as I mentioned. All these rooms are named after men. They didn’t listen to Abigail Adams, who told her husband, “If particular attention is not paid to the ladies, we will mount a rebellion.” (Laughter.) Well, there’s been a number of rebellions since that period of time. One of them is that Ben Franklin led a pretty interesting life and he particularly led an interesting life when he was the ambassador to Paris with Jefferson, and John Adams was there – a period of time when they were all there together. If you’ve read about him, you would all know that when he said wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, he knew what he was talking about. (Laughter.) And you also would understand that he would clearly not get confirmed by the United States Senate today. (Laughter.)
This is supposed to be a fun evening and it is a fun evening. Evan Ryan is, as you know, our assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. And she has it all, as you see. She’s got energy, creativity, eloquence, dynamic, and I am very, very grateful to have her on our team. She’s doing a great job of reaching out across all the international boundaries to bring us closer together, and I appreciate enormously what she is doing.
And Pattie Sellers has been a champion for women for many, many years, a driving force behind Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s partnership with the State Department. And so I’m happy to celebrate the fact that this partnership is now in its 10th year and frankly is generating more energy and more excitement than ever. So Pattie, thank you for tremendous leadership. We appreciate it. (Applause.)
Now sadly, there was a time – and it was not so long ago – when U.S. foreign policy was pretty much a male-only club, like a lot of places in our country and in the world. Until the early 1970s, a woman Foreign Service officer had to literally choose between keeping her job and getting married because she wasn’t allowed to do both. It wasn’t until 1997, more than two centuries after our nation’s birth that we celebrate here in this building so much, that a woman was finally permitted to take the oath of office as secretary of state.
And today, I am proud to say the President’s national security advisor is a woman, our ambassador to the United Nations is a woman. My predecessor was a woman, and so was her predecessor. We have one woman out of two positions as deputy secretary a woman – that’s 50 percent. And we have four under secretaries of state out of six who are women. And I believe that is what happens when brains and talent determine who does what instead of bigotry bringing down the ceiling. (Applause.)
And literally preventing half the population of a nation from taking part – I will tell you, in the course of my travels I am thunderstruck all the time. Cathy Russell knows this. She’s helping to build on this – the amount of energy in country after country today that is embracing this notion that you cannot survive, you can’t make it, you can’t build in today’s world with half your population on the bench. It’s impossible. No team in anything can survive that way. And I think we’ve broken through here; there’s no question in my mind about that. It’s forever. And the levels of – we have some things we can still do better. We all know that, and we’re working at it constantly. But I’m proud to say that I had, I think, more women serve as my chief of staff in the Senate, my campaign for President, any number of major efforts – Stephanie Cutter’s over here. She was my spokesperson in the campaign. (Applause.) And countless numbers of people have made the difference.
But whether it’s in the United States or in any country – and you all know this. I know I’m obviously stating the obvious, but it’s important to say it, and again and again and again, because we have a lot of places which haven’t broken through. But pushing women back, shoving them aside, holding them down, beating them up are simply not parts of an argument of any kind. Those actions are always wrong, they’re always dumb, and in some cases they’re actually criminal.
So if we’re going to sit down and compose an agenda, all of us; if you were to say, “Here are the things we need to do to try to move forward globally, country after country,” whether it’s five years from now or 25 years from now, I think you’d probably end up with a list that looks something like this. You’d talk about an economy that generates opportunity for all. You’d talk about better access to quality education from pre-K all the way up. You’d talk about urgent action on saving the planet and having enough food and having enough security, being able to avoid refugee challenges and lack of water and children dying and disease being spread, and we’d avoid it by taking action on clean energy and climate change. You’d talk for sure about healthier babies and improved child nutrition and less maternal mortality in the course of childbirth. And you would talk about lower rates of disease, crime, violence, and civil strife, and finally, a stronger sense of community, of belonging, of sharing.
So if you wanted to save time, you could just draw a line on a page and write underneath it, “Empower women,” because every single one of those things sees progress if women are in fact empowered and able to address those concerns. They’re all part of it. It’s why the State/Fortune magazine partnership actually is so meaningful, and it’s why it is helping to bring about a larger transformation that is so vital to our future.
One of my predecessors, Madeleine Albright, said there is a special place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women. (Applause.) But let me just build on that for a minute. The actual – the truth is we all need to help each other. And a mentoring program in which one generation gives a hand up to the next is a vital way to be able to expand leadership networks. And what we know today is that in today’s world – Rick and a group of young Foreign Service officers articulately brought this to my attention when we met to just talk about the changes in the world that we’re living in today – and they commented on how today power is not served up so much in hierarchies as it is served up in networks. Think about that: everybody connected all the time, 24/7, everywhere, but many of them powerless to be able to do anything about those connections, to be able to move on them.
So something like the Fortune Most Powerful Women Network is a critical way to pay homage to that notion of how power is in fact created. And so far, this women’s network has helped 250 emerging leaders from more than 50 countries – leaders such as Sarika Bhattacharyya, who went through the program in 2012 and is now running a nonprofit mentoring initiative for women entrepreneurs in her home country of India; or leaders such as one of last year’s participants, Florence Ozor, who returned to Nigeria to join a flourishing civil society movement to advocate for voting rights and for the safe return of girls kidnapped by terrorists.
As for the emerging women leaders who are gathered here tonight, all I can say is this is an amazingly impressive group – and I’m not sure that “emerging” is quite the right word. I think you’ve already emerged, taken off. (Laughter.) From as near as Mexico to as far away as East Asia and Africa, every single one of you are making a mark in just about every sector: trade, investment, engineering, fashion, finance, travel, human resources, the selling of cars and trucks, and the use of advanced technology to prevent that scourge of the modern world – cattle rustling. (Laughter.) That’s actually happening.
Now I don’t have to tell any of you here that – in this audience – we got a lot of work still to do to eliminate those barriers completely. I can remember when I first started in politics after I came back from Vietnam, early 1970s, one of the things we threw ourselves into was the Equal Rights Amendment. And it was pre-Roe v. Wade and pre-other things that advanced the interests of women, and we learned then how difficult it was to eliminate the barriers of bigotry and condescension and tokenism, and let’s be honest, in some cases just jealousy, that unjustly impeded the progress of women. And it look a lot of folks ready to break down those barriers and stand up and take risks – sometimes risks of livelihood – to be able to bring about those changes. We’d have to be pretty dim, though, not to recognize a trend. With us tonight are 19 very good reasons to be optimistic in a world that may at times seem broken and hurting, but which is also full – amazingly full – of exciting new opportunities and grounds for hope.
So my concluding note to you tonight is a very a simple and indeed even a personal one. As the father of two daughters, both very independent and out there in the world carving out their own careers – one a doctor and one a filmmaker; as the husband of a wife who is a powerhouse in her own right and defined her own course, I want to say thank you to every advocate, every person who is an activist, all of you, and those who are here in spirit tonight. I thank you for not accepting injustice. I thank you for not waiting when people suggested you should. I thank you for not settling for half-measures. I thank you for working so hard and for so long with such determination to bring about the day that will surely come, the day when we are able to say with confidence to any girl anywhere that she can truly expect to rise as high and go as far as her energy and her skills will take her.
Because when that day comes, there’s no question in my mind – I’ve seen it in community after community – women help make peace. Women help resolve conflict. Women usually are picking up the pieces. And if we will simply give more power in places where it should’ve been put a long time ago, then we are going to make this world reach a place it has dreamed of and needs to. Thank you. God bless. (Applause.) It’s time to eat. Thank you. (Applause.)
04/29/2015 09:58 PM EDT
Remarks at the 10th Annual Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women's Mentoring Partnership
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Benjamin Franklin Room
Washington, DC
April 29, 2015
Thank you very, very much, Evan. Thank you very, very much, Pattie. Thanks so much for doing this and for Fortune’s commitment to all of this. And thank you, all of you, good evening. And I apologize profusely; I gather you’ve been sitting here waiting to eat, right? Anyway, I am sorry. I was held up in the place where Tina works, called the White House – (laughter) – where we were having a long discussion about one of our trouble spots in the world. And I’m really happy to be here. This is not a trouble spot. (Laughter.)
I want to thank the members of Congress who are here. I guess they’re spread around. I don’t see them all sitting at one table. I see Nita over here. But Representatives Debbie Dingell, Nita Lowey who’s here, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Maxine Walters, I want to thank – Waters – I want to thank them for their tremendous contribution. They are powerful women, let me tell you, especially Nita’s got my budget. (Laughter and applause.)
But thank you for the hard work that you do every single day. Honestly, we really appreciate it. And thank you to the Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios. I mentioned to her she’s got her name on every dollar around the country. She said, “I’m watching that money really carefully.”
And Tina Tchen, what a great job you do. Thank you, you’re a delight to work with and we really appreciate everything that you and the First Lady are accomplishing. Thank you very much. We’re excited to have all of you with us on this extraordinary floor of the State Department. This is, I think you know, the Ben Franklin Room. It’s a special room. That’s Ben over there above the fireplace, and the other Ben, my dog, who is the diplo-mutt, is downstairs waiting for me to take him home so he can eat, too. So I’ve held everybody up tonight. (Laughter.) He’s not talking to me.
The most powerful women. We’re in the Ben Franklin Room, as I mentioned. All these rooms are named after men. They didn’t listen to Abigail Adams, who told her husband, “If particular attention is not paid to the ladies, we will mount a rebellion.” (Laughter.) Well, there’s been a number of rebellions since that period of time. One of them is that Ben Franklin led a pretty interesting life and he particularly led an interesting life when he was the ambassador to Paris with Jefferson, and John Adams was there – a period of time when they were all there together. If you’ve read about him, you would all know that when he said wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, he knew what he was talking about. (Laughter.) And you also would understand that he would clearly not get confirmed by the United States Senate today. (Laughter.)
This is supposed to be a fun evening and it is a fun evening. Evan Ryan is, as you know, our assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. And she has it all, as you see. She’s got energy, creativity, eloquence, dynamic, and I am very, very grateful to have her on our team. She’s doing a great job of reaching out across all the international boundaries to bring us closer together, and I appreciate enormously what she is doing.
And Pattie Sellers has been a champion for women for many, many years, a driving force behind Fortune’s Most Powerful Women’s partnership with the State Department. And so I’m happy to celebrate the fact that this partnership is now in its 10th year and frankly is generating more energy and more excitement than ever. So Pattie, thank you for tremendous leadership. We appreciate it. (Applause.)
Now sadly, there was a time – and it was not so long ago – when U.S. foreign policy was pretty much a male-only club, like a lot of places in our country and in the world. Until the early 1970s, a woman Foreign Service officer had to literally choose between keeping her job and getting married because she wasn’t allowed to do both. It wasn’t until 1997, more than two centuries after our nation’s birth that we celebrate here in this building so much, that a woman was finally permitted to take the oath of office as secretary of state.
And today, I am proud to say the President’s national security advisor is a woman, our ambassador to the United Nations is a woman. My predecessor was a woman, and so was her predecessor. We have one woman out of two positions as deputy secretary a woman – that’s 50 percent. And we have four under secretaries of state out of six who are women. And I believe that is what happens when brains and talent determine who does what instead of bigotry bringing down the ceiling. (Applause.)
And literally preventing half the population of a nation from taking part – I will tell you, in the course of my travels I am thunderstruck all the time. Cathy Russell knows this. She’s helping to build on this – the amount of energy in country after country today that is embracing this notion that you cannot survive, you can’t make it, you can’t build in today’s world with half your population on the bench. It’s impossible. No team in anything can survive that way. And I think we’ve broken through here; there’s no question in my mind about that. It’s forever. And the levels of – we have some things we can still do better. We all know that, and we’re working at it constantly. But I’m proud to say that I had, I think, more women serve as my chief of staff in the Senate, my campaign for President, any number of major efforts – Stephanie Cutter’s over here. She was my spokesperson in the campaign. (Applause.) And countless numbers of people have made the difference.
But whether it’s in the United States or in any country – and you all know this. I know I’m obviously stating the obvious, but it’s important to say it, and again and again and again, because we have a lot of places which haven’t broken through. But pushing women back, shoving them aside, holding them down, beating them up are simply not parts of an argument of any kind. Those actions are always wrong, they’re always dumb, and in some cases they’re actually criminal.
So if we’re going to sit down and compose an agenda, all of us; if you were to say, “Here are the things we need to do to try to move forward globally, country after country,” whether it’s five years from now or 25 years from now, I think you’d probably end up with a list that looks something like this. You’d talk about an economy that generates opportunity for all. You’d talk about better access to quality education from pre-K all the way up. You’d talk about urgent action on saving the planet and having enough food and having enough security, being able to avoid refugee challenges and lack of water and children dying and disease being spread, and we’d avoid it by taking action on clean energy and climate change. You’d talk for sure about healthier babies and improved child nutrition and less maternal mortality in the course of childbirth. And you would talk about lower rates of disease, crime, violence, and civil strife, and finally, a stronger sense of community, of belonging, of sharing.
So if you wanted to save time, you could just draw a line on a page and write underneath it, “Empower women,” because every single one of those things sees progress if women are in fact empowered and able to address those concerns. They’re all part of it. It’s why the State/Fortune magazine partnership actually is so meaningful, and it’s why it is helping to bring about a larger transformation that is so vital to our future.
One of my predecessors, Madeleine Albright, said there is a special place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women. (Applause.) But let me just build on that for a minute. The actual – the truth is we all need to help each other. And a mentoring program in which one generation gives a hand up to the next is a vital way to be able to expand leadership networks. And what we know today is that in today’s world – Rick and a group of young Foreign Service officers articulately brought this to my attention when we met to just talk about the changes in the world that we’re living in today – and they commented on how today power is not served up so much in hierarchies as it is served up in networks. Think about that: everybody connected all the time, 24/7, everywhere, but many of them powerless to be able to do anything about those connections, to be able to move on them.
So something like the Fortune Most Powerful Women Network is a critical way to pay homage to that notion of how power is in fact created. And so far, this women’s network has helped 250 emerging leaders from more than 50 countries – leaders such as Sarika Bhattacharyya, who went through the program in 2012 and is now running a nonprofit mentoring initiative for women entrepreneurs in her home country of India; or leaders such as one of last year’s participants, Florence Ozor, who returned to Nigeria to join a flourishing civil society movement to advocate for voting rights and for the safe return of girls kidnapped by terrorists.
As for the emerging women leaders who are gathered here tonight, all I can say is this is an amazingly impressive group – and I’m not sure that “emerging” is quite the right word. I think you’ve already emerged, taken off. (Laughter.) From as near as Mexico to as far away as East Asia and Africa, every single one of you are making a mark in just about every sector: trade, investment, engineering, fashion, finance, travel, human resources, the selling of cars and trucks, and the use of advanced technology to prevent that scourge of the modern world – cattle rustling. (Laughter.) That’s actually happening.
Now I don’t have to tell any of you here that – in this audience – we got a lot of work still to do to eliminate those barriers completely. I can remember when I first started in politics after I came back from Vietnam, early 1970s, one of the things we threw ourselves into was the Equal Rights Amendment. And it was pre-Roe v. Wade and pre-other things that advanced the interests of women, and we learned then how difficult it was to eliminate the barriers of bigotry and condescension and tokenism, and let’s be honest, in some cases just jealousy, that unjustly impeded the progress of women. And it look a lot of folks ready to break down those barriers and stand up and take risks – sometimes risks of livelihood – to be able to bring about those changes. We’d have to be pretty dim, though, not to recognize a trend. With us tonight are 19 very good reasons to be optimistic in a world that may at times seem broken and hurting, but which is also full – amazingly full – of exciting new opportunities and grounds for hope.
So my concluding note to you tonight is a very a simple and indeed even a personal one. As the father of two daughters, both very independent and out there in the world carving out their own careers – one a doctor and one a filmmaker; as the husband of a wife who is a powerhouse in her own right and defined her own course, I want to say thank you to every advocate, every person who is an activist, all of you, and those who are here in spirit tonight. I thank you for not accepting injustice. I thank you for not waiting when people suggested you should. I thank you for not settling for half-measures. I thank you for working so hard and for so long with such determination to bring about the day that will surely come, the day when we are able to say with confidence to any girl anywhere that she can truly expect to rise as high and go as far as her energy and her skills will take her.
Because when that day comes, there’s no question in my mind – I’ve seen it in community after community – women help make peace. Women help resolve conflict. Women usually are picking up the pieces. And if we will simply give more power in places where it should’ve been put a long time ago, then we are going to make this world reach a place it has dreamed of and needs to. Thank you. God bless. (Applause.) It’s time to eat. Thank you. (Applause.)
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
CYBERLEARNING SCIENCE
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Classroom as virtual phenomenon
University of Illinois professor uses cyberlearning to bring scientific processes to life
In the schools where Tom Moher works, classrooms are imbued with science through simulated earthquakes, virtual bugs in the walls and digital portholes to the solar system.
"I want to immerse students in the physical space and time of scientific phenomena," said Moher, an associate professor of computer science, learning sciences, and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Sometimes I use the term 'marinating' the kids. Time affords me the opportunity for surprise. Nature happens when it happens, not just because it happens to be science period."
In his talk at the National Science Foundation (NSF) last spring as part of the "Designing Disruptive Learning Technologies" series, Moher showcased projects that use "embedded phenomena" to bring scientific processes into the classroom and to foster learning from those experiences.
One of the projects he described (supported by an award from NSF) was RoomQuake, an earthquake simulation system where the classroom itself becomes an active seismic area.
At unpredictable times throughout the unit, rumbles emanating from speakers attached to simulated seismographs signal to the class that an earthquake is occurring.
Students rush to terminals around the classroom, read the data from seismograms and use that information to determine the magnitude of the event, the distance of the event from the recording stations and eventually and the epicenter of the earthquake. Over the course of six weeks and dozens of earthquakes, students discover a "fault line" emerging.
Moher's immersive learning experiences bring technological richness and narrative drama to the classroom. This is true not only of RoomQuake, but also HelioRoom, where students are asked to imagine that the sun is located in the center of their classroom, and Wallcology, where tablets adjacent to the walls of classrooms serve as viewports into an imaginary space inside the walls filled with the virtual fauna.
The projects also highlight the role of computing and data analysis in domains from seismology to astronomy.
In Moher's most recent project, HungerGames, students learn about animal foraging behaviors using stuffed animals with embedded RFID tags that act as tangible avatars to represent their foraging among patches of food (with camouflaged RFID readers) distributed around a classroom.
During a two-period pilot enactment of the unit, Moher and his team demonstrated the feasibility of the design for classroom use, finding evidence of emotional relationships between learners and avatars, and the emergence of unanticipated behaviors that promoted new questions about the science phenomena. The results provisionally support the effectiveness of the activity as a science learning environment.
Moher's team presented their results at the Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction in 2014.
Whether it is students peering into a secret insect habitat or rushing to locate the epicenter of an earthquake, "the kids and teachers are our willing accomplices," Moher said.
"It's their imagination, along with a little bit of technology, that brings the room alive."
-- Aaron Dubrow, NSF
Investigators
Thomas Moher
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Illinois at Chicago
Classroom as virtual phenomenon
University of Illinois professor uses cyberlearning to bring scientific processes to life
In the schools where Tom Moher works, classrooms are imbued with science through simulated earthquakes, virtual bugs in the walls and digital portholes to the solar system.
"I want to immerse students in the physical space and time of scientific phenomena," said Moher, an associate professor of computer science, learning sciences, and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Sometimes I use the term 'marinating' the kids. Time affords me the opportunity for surprise. Nature happens when it happens, not just because it happens to be science period."
In his talk at the National Science Foundation (NSF) last spring as part of the "Designing Disruptive Learning Technologies" series, Moher showcased projects that use "embedded phenomena" to bring scientific processes into the classroom and to foster learning from those experiences.
One of the projects he described (supported by an award from NSF) was RoomQuake, an earthquake simulation system where the classroom itself becomes an active seismic area.
At unpredictable times throughout the unit, rumbles emanating from speakers attached to simulated seismographs signal to the class that an earthquake is occurring.
Students rush to terminals around the classroom, read the data from seismograms and use that information to determine the magnitude of the event, the distance of the event from the recording stations and eventually and the epicenter of the earthquake. Over the course of six weeks and dozens of earthquakes, students discover a "fault line" emerging.
Moher's immersive learning experiences bring technological richness and narrative drama to the classroom. This is true not only of RoomQuake, but also HelioRoom, where students are asked to imagine that the sun is located in the center of their classroom, and Wallcology, where tablets adjacent to the walls of classrooms serve as viewports into an imaginary space inside the walls filled with the virtual fauna.
The projects also highlight the role of computing and data analysis in domains from seismology to astronomy.
In Moher's most recent project, HungerGames, students learn about animal foraging behaviors using stuffed animals with embedded RFID tags that act as tangible avatars to represent their foraging among patches of food (with camouflaged RFID readers) distributed around a classroom.
During a two-period pilot enactment of the unit, Moher and his team demonstrated the feasibility of the design for classroom use, finding evidence of emotional relationships between learners and avatars, and the emergence of unanticipated behaviors that promoted new questions about the science phenomena. The results provisionally support the effectiveness of the activity as a science learning environment.
Moher's team presented their results at the Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction in 2014.
Whether it is students peering into a secret insect habitat or rushing to locate the epicenter of an earthquake, "the kids and teachers are our willing accomplices," Moher said.
"It's their imagination, along with a little bit of technology, that brings the room alive."
-- Aaron Dubrow, NSF
Investigators
Thomas Moher
Related Institutions/Organizations
University of Illinois at Chicago
Sunday, April 19, 2015
NSF REPORTS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING GRAD SCHOOL ENROLLMENT UP
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Science and engineering graduate school enrollment increases
Rise largely fueled by influx of foreign students
After remaining essentially flat for the past two years, the number of full-time graduate students enrolled in science and engineering programs rose by 2.4 percent in 2013, to nearly 425,000 students, according to a new InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).
NCSES found the increase was largely due to a 7.9 percent rise in full-time enrollment of foreign graduate students on temporary visas. Foreign enrollment hit an all-time high of 168,297 students in 2013, or 39.6 percent of the full-time science and engineering graduate student population--up from 35.9 percent in 2008.
In contrast, full-time enrollment for U.S. science and engineering graduate students fell for the third year in a row. But while overall enrollment by U.S. citizens and permanent residents declined, the number of U.S. students of Hispanic or Latino descent has climbed steadily since 2008, resulting in 25.8 percent in growth.
NCSES found that among U.S. graduate students, enrollment continued to become more diverse. Of the total students enrolled in science and engineering graduate programs:
8.9 percent were Asian and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders.
8.6 percent were Hispanic or Latino.
8.1 percent were Black or African American.
2.1 percent reported they were more than one race.
0.6 percent were American Indian or Alaska Native.
Those groups made up 28 percent of total graduate enrollments in science and engineering, including U.S. and foreign students. In 2008, they accounted for less than a quarter of students who were U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
The study also found that a decade-long decline continued in postdocs conducting research in the sciences. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of postdocs in science fields dropped by 2.8 percent, with the largest decreases in the two biggest science fields: biological sciences and physical sciences. Over the same period, the number of postdocs in engineering fields rose by 2 percent, with the largest increases in chemical engineering, biomedical engineering and electrical engineering.
Science and engineering graduate school enrollment increases
Rise largely fueled by influx of foreign students
After remaining essentially flat for the past two years, the number of full-time graduate students enrolled in science and engineering programs rose by 2.4 percent in 2013, to nearly 425,000 students, according to a new InfoBrief from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES).
NCSES found the increase was largely due to a 7.9 percent rise in full-time enrollment of foreign graduate students on temporary visas. Foreign enrollment hit an all-time high of 168,297 students in 2013, or 39.6 percent of the full-time science and engineering graduate student population--up from 35.9 percent in 2008.
In contrast, full-time enrollment for U.S. science and engineering graduate students fell for the third year in a row. But while overall enrollment by U.S. citizens and permanent residents declined, the number of U.S. students of Hispanic or Latino descent has climbed steadily since 2008, resulting in 25.8 percent in growth.
NCSES found that among U.S. graduate students, enrollment continued to become more diverse. Of the total students enrolled in science and engineering graduate programs:
8.9 percent were Asian and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islanders.
8.6 percent were Hispanic or Latino.
8.1 percent were Black or African American.
2.1 percent reported they were more than one race.
0.6 percent were American Indian or Alaska Native.
Those groups made up 28 percent of total graduate enrollments in science and engineering, including U.S. and foreign students. In 2008, they accounted for less than a quarter of students who were U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
The study also found that a decade-long decline continued in postdocs conducting research in the sciences. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of postdocs in science fields dropped by 2.8 percent, with the largest decreases in the two biggest science fields: biological sciences and physical sciences. Over the same period, the number of postdocs in engineering fields rose by 2 percent, with the largest increases in chemical engineering, biomedical engineering and electrical engineering.
Monday, April 6, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS IN PANAMA CITY
FROM: THE STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at "Foro de Rectores de Las Americas"
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Panama City, Panama
April 9, 2015
Thank you so much. Thank you. Muchas gracias and buenos tardes. I’m very honored to be here. University rectors and the Ministry of Education representatives and students, distinguished guests: It’s really a pleasure for me to be here at this historic Summit, and I deeply appreciate the chance to share a few thoughts with you here this afternoon.
Let me begin by thanking Education Minister Marcela Paredes not just for her generous introduction, which I could have listened to all night – (laughter) – but for her remarkable commitment to educational opportunities throughout the hemisphere. She is a great leader and a great spokesperson for what we’ve come here to talk about today.
And I met Minister Paredes when I came here – it was my first meeting with her during President Varela’s inauguration. And I brought with me at that time as a guest the now former governor of Massachusetts – he was then the governor – Deval Patrick, and he’s a huge education passionate advocate. And I want you to know that when the two of them got together and started talking about what they were able to do to promote education, it took over the whole meeting; it was finished.
Minister Varela summed up the challenge that we face when she said that we must “reflect on our starting points on where we stand, on where we want to go, and how to better invest our resources in order to adapt them to the needs of children’s education.”
Now, I think everyone in this room shares that conviction. In a world that is changing faster and becoming more interconnected than ever before, education more so than ever before, is the ladder of opportunity for people all across the planet. And that is why the expansion of educational opportunity has, from the beginning, been a central focus of the Summit of the Americas. It is why President Obama launched 100,000 Strong in the Americas to increase the number of young people from the region who are studying in the United States and the number of students from the United States attending universities in the region. It is why, here in Panama, President Varela began the Panama Bilingue program, which sends more than a thousand school teachers each year to universities in the United States and the United Kingdom for professional training. And I hope we will all say thank you to Eneida Lopez and Marta Lewis de Cardoze of the Galindo Foundation for their leadership of Panama Bilingue. We are grateful for what they do. (Applause.)
In 1994, when President Clinton invited 33 democratically elected leaders to Miami for the first Summit of the Americas, those leaders had a shared understanding of the mission. Together, they pledged to open new markets, create free trade zones, strengthen democratic institutions, respect human rights, and invest in the building blocks of social progress – including health care and education at all levels. President Clinton said simply: “If we’re successful, the summit will lead to more jobs, opportunity and prosperity for our children and for generations to come.”
Today, as we gather in Panama City for the Seventh Summit, we find ourselves encouraged by the progress that has been made. We also find ourselves determined to close the gaps that still exist, and more aware than ever that we will go forward together or we’ll fall back together.
Now, the progress has not always been steady. It hasn’t always been fast. But progress has been hard won. I think about the first trip that I made to Central America as a United States Senator. This was almost 30 years ago now, a time when much of the hemisphere seemed to wind up in the headlines for only for the wrong reasons – for wars, military governments, narcotics cartels – you name it. Few people back then were certain of a brighter future. Fewer probably thought we could turn the tide.
Well, today, the tide has turned and it has been turning for some time, thanks to the efforts of everybody in the region itself.
In country after country, the people of the Americas have strengthened their democracies and taken steps to ensure the fundamental freedoms of their citizens. And in many places, democracy has brought not only freedom from fear, but freedom from want. In the last decade, the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean grew at a rate of 4 percent a year. Incomes are rising. The middle class is growing. And the gap, the gap between the rich and poor – though still far too wide – is narrowing faster than in any other region.
We’ve also learned an important lesson since 1994 – and that is the extent to which progress depends not only on what governments do on their own, but on how willing they are to listen, to experiment, and to act in partnership with the private sector, civil society, educators, leaders from the scientific community. In our era, in this day and age, each day we wake up to a new world. We have to move forward constantly just to keep pace. And our democracies, frankly – ours too in the United States – need to be more agile; they need to be more responsive to citizens’ demands for greater opportunity and for greater accountability. And to get ahead, it is imperative that we set ambitious goals. We have to pursue them relentlessly. We have to hold people in public office like myself accountable. And we have to mean -- sometimes we have to actually upset some people and take a few risks. None of us should be willing to settle for the status quo. It’s unacceptable.
And that is why this first-ever Rectors’ Forum at the Summit of the Americas is so important. And the question we have to ask ourselves is: How do we together best work to create jobs, to create opportunity, to build prosperity for our children and for generations to come?
Well, let me offer an answer to the questions I just asked. There’s really a three-word answer to that question: Education, innovation, conservation.
Now make no mistake: These three words articulate not separate, but rather interlocking challenges. Without learning, our citizens will lack the knowledge and the skills that they have to have to compete in the 21st century in this new, fast-moving information age, information management economy. And without innovation, many of those who graduate from top universities will still be unable to find good jobs. And without clean energy, our economies will be held hostage to costly, unpredictable, nonrenewable resources of power, and that will lead to uneven growth and ultimately, I promise you, it will threaten the very future of all of us. What this means is that we have to tackle these three challenges simultaneously, and believe me, that’s what we intend to do.
Start with education.
We all know that education is a lifelong process. But it has to begin in the earliest days. It has to begin correctly – the earliest days. The brain of a child grows mostly in the first three years, certainly the first three to seven to eight years are the most important in terms of ability to learn for a lifetime. In the United States, we have seen a big push in recent years in order to try to move towards expanding access to kindergarten, so that children start learning as soon as they are able to. Globally, one of the Millennium Development Goals has been to ensure that every child – girls and boys – are able to attend primary school. Enormous progress has been made in that direction, and in our hemisphere, primary school attendance is now very near universal. That’s the good news.
Other areas are more troublesome, and this is true in my country as well as many of yours.
For example, we have to be sure that between the time that our children enter school each morning and the time that they leave in the afternoon, they actually learn something. Sitting in a classroom and getting an education are not the same things. There is no shortcut to investing in good teachers, providing quality professional development, and compensating people fairly for the work that they do.
We also have to find better ways to incorporate new curriculum methods and technology into the learning process; just giving a child a tablet or a laptop is not enough. You have to instill the desire in that child to want to learn more, to think critically, and the belief that success in school will actually translate into success in life. And if and only if we are able to do those things will we reduce the alarming number of students who enter the system but then they drop out before graduating from college, from secondary school or – in too many cases – even the seventh or eighth grade.
Another major task that we face in education today is to strengthen the connection between report cards that we give to kids and the paychecks that they’re able to earn afterwards. As this remarkable gathering reflects, there are fine colleges and universities in every part of our hemisphere, from the University of Sao Paulo to the Monterrey Institute of Technology to the Catholic University of Chile. But there is a troubling gap between the skills that schools teach and the expertise that the job market demands. Many of the region’s young people graduate with degrees that leave them ill-suited for available positions. And this gap is as frustrating to our students as it is to potential employers – and we’re working to bridge it and we all need to work to bridge it together.
Given the number of young people in the region, this basically ought to be a fixable problem. In the United States, we have developed a very strong community college system, and it is empowered by direct involvement in the curriculum design and hands-on career counseling from the private sector. And that’s how we try to bridge the gap, by getting the private sector involved in the curriculum. And that’s why President Obama has proposed to Congress the enactment of legislation that would guarantee access to community college for every student who applies for it, regardless of their ability to pay. It’s why, in Jamaica earlier today, President Obama announced $68 million in new funding for programs that will expand education, training, and employment programs for youth throughout Central America and the Caribbean.
And I am especially pleased that we are joined this evening by the Secretary of State of Puerto Rico. The Secretary is here with a number of Puerto Rican rectors whose universities are ready to welcome Latin American and Caribbean students to an American educational experience on the Isla del Encanto.
So we’re approaching this issue with the urgency that it deserves. At the 2009 Summit of the Americas, the United States launched our Scholarships for Economic Growth program, which provided $50 million for 1,300 students from Latin America and the Caribbean to be able to get vocational training in the United States. President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas builds on that effort, and the results speak for themselves: Already, more than 72,000 students are coming to the United States each year from Latin America and the Caribbean. And nearly 47,000 U.S. students benefit from studying abroad in the region. Students like Natascha Moscoa from Costa Rica and Day Moore from Connecticut, who started a joint venture to empower women entrepreneurs. Students like Luis Santiago from the Dominican Republic, who studied in Chicago and then returned home to promote innovation and expand information in his community.
Their success reflects a very important truth. Students who are able to spend a portion of their time learning in other countries have a significant advantage: They return home equipped with greater confidence, new skills, the ability to speak a foreign language and they work the ability to also work in a foreign culture. And guess what – they come back with friends and contacts that will last a lifetime. I cannot tell you how many foreign ministers I have met in the course of serving as Secretary of State who say to me: I so enjoyed my time learning at Columbia or California or wherever it was, and vice versa; I meet people who tell me how much they learned when they went to study in another country. It makes all the difference in the world.
That’s why the United States isn’t just continuing the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative. Guess what – we’re doubling down on that initiative. We’ve already raised millions of dollars from the private sector for the Innovation Fund, which awards grants to universities to promote study abroad and programs between the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere. We’ve awarded 47 grants to more than 100 higher education institutions across the region in order to expand their capacity to send and to host exchange students. We believe in this program. And today, I am pleased to congratulate the most recent Innovation Fund grant winners in the United States, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, and Paraguay. These university partnerships will create new exchange programs for students that can have a transformative impact, which is exactly why they are such a high priority for me as Secretary of State.
Now, all of this leads to the second big challenge that I want to just say a word about today – and that concerns the jobs of the future. Nothing will be meaningful, no expectations will be met, without jobs – good jobs that genuinely open the doors of opportunity and improve the quality of life. What are these jobs? Where are they going to come from? How are they going to be developed? Who is going to benefit from them the most?
I’m willing to bet that at the heart of any story that you have heard about someone lifting themselves out of poverty, there’s a new job, a new opportunity to make a better living that came to them. Well, in Latin America and in the Caribbean, as in the United States and Canada, more than half of the new jobs are created by small and medium-size businesses. So if our goal is to reduce poverty, expand the middle class, help families create a better life for their children, the answer’s pretty simple – we need to innovate. And that means doing more to help small businesses create jobs and tap into global markets.
Now, you think I’m making this up, that this is not a reality? Believe me, we are – I’m able to say this to you because we’re doing it.
America is fortunate – the United States is fortunate to possess one of the world’s most extensive small business support networks. I saw this firsthand when I served as Chairman of the Small Business Committee in the United States Senate. The Small Business Administration, led by my colleague Maria Contreras-Sweet, provides training and counseling services to a million small businesses every year at more than 1,000 small business development centers that we have created across our country. And I’m proud that the agency has become a model for the region.
Just run the list: Brazil’s SEBRAE centers support more than a million small businesses across Brazil. Mexico has created a new National Entrepreneurship Institute, which is working to integrate hundreds of incubators and small business development centers. In Chile, President Bachelet has undertaken a new initiative to create 50 small business development centers. And El Salvador has shown great leadership in Central America by dedicating scarce resources to support 12 centers.
So we really have a great foundation to build on. But the fact is, you can never do too much to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. You just can’t. And that is exactly why President Obama launched the Small Business Network of the Americas to connect thousands of centers across the hemisphere and help entrepreneurs get the training and the counseling and the support that they need in order to enter new markets. One of the things that I learned when I was chairman of the committee was a lot of people have no idea how actually easy it is to access a global marketplace. And with a little bit of help, a mom or a pop enterprise of two or three people can become 12, and 15, and 20, and grow into a larger business. Many of these connection points that I’m talking about are located on university campuses. And I encourage all of you to speak to your counterparts in El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and the United States, and other countries that are embracing this kind of concept and that are getting the benefits of it as a result.
Now, without doubt, I’m sure you’ll all agree, one of the smartest investments that we can make is on the promise of women and girls. In too many parts of the world still, there’s a discrimination and they’re left behind. No country – no country can make it in today’s world leaving half of its population on the bench. No economy can thrive when women are not given a seat at the table. And that’s why President Obama launched the Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas Initiative: To give women and girls the training and the tools that they need to become the next presidents, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in their communities. And one thing that we know for certain: Empowering women is an investment that is guaranteed to show enormous returns, not just in terms of the balance sheet but in terms of the social structure, and often in terms of peace and stability.
So education and innovation are critical. But we also need to think ahead and realize that the strongest economies will be built on the power sources of the future, not the past. Many of the clean energy technologies that will help ignite whole new industries are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were just 10 years ago – and we can use them, we must use them, to curb climate change even as we know they have all the benefits on the upside of creating new jobs. The solution to climate change, my friends, which is real and coming at us fast, is energy policy – good energy policy makes good climate solutions. It’s that simple.
Just imagine the possibilities. We were blessed in America to see more growth in the 1990s than at any recent time in American history – in recent history, since the 1920s, the great age of wealth creation when there was no income tax, and the early part of the Industrial Revolution. But the market of the 1990s, which saw every single income level in America go up, was a 1 trillion dollar market, with 1 billion users. The global energy market we are looking at today is a 6 trillion dollar market already with 4 to 5 billion users, and it’s going to go up to 9 billion users as the population of the planet grows in the next 30, 40 years. Think of that: 9 billion users in the next decades. By 2040, investment in the power sector is expected to reach nearly $20 trillion. That is an enormous amount of investment. And we want to see clean, accessible energy be the biggest slice of that pie.
So how do realize the full potential of this opportunity?
To begin, we need leaders with the political courage to set us on the right path. And I am proud to serve with a President who has accepted that challenge. Today, thanks to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, the United States is well on its way to meeting our international commitments to cut greenhouse gases emissions by 2020. And that’s because we’re going straight to the largest sources of pollution. We’re targeting emissions from cars, trucks, utilities, which account for about 60 percent of greenhouse gases that we release. And we’re also tackling more modest opportunities so that we cover every sector of the economy and every variety of greenhouse gas.
We’re also investing in cleaner alternatives. Since President Obama took office, the United States has upped its wind energy production by three times. We’ve increased our solar energy generation more than ten times. We’ve also become smarter about the way we use energy in our homes and in our businesses. And all of these are big steps.
But I can’t emphasize this fact enough: No single country – not China, not the United States, not India – no single country can solve this problem or foot this bill alone. Climate change is not an abstract future concern. Its effects are already on us right now. I think we had something like $110 billion of costs last year to make up for the fires and the floods and the extraordinary storms and all of the damage that was done by increased tides and so forth.
Here in Panama, extreme weather events are creating cycles of flood and drought and they’re threatening the water supplies that enable the Panama Canal to operate effectively and supply electricity. Just a few years ago, due to a record storm, the canal had to close for only the third time in its 100-year history, disrupting one of the world’s most important economic lifelines. In Peru, where I attended the climate change conference in December, tropical glaciers and fisheries are under threat. We’ve seen sea level rise contribute to the erosion of Puerto Rico’s coastline around Rincon. And coral reefs are at risk from warming waters and ocean acidification. The number of major hurricanes in the Atlantic basin has increased and then it increased some more, and that hurts tourism. Some of your nations, especially those in this region and in the Caribbean, climate change may well be the single gravest danger to security and prosperity. So when I say we need a global solution, I mean it. Anything less won’t work.
But still in our hemisphere, there are several steps that we can take without waiting for the rest of the world. You don’t have to wait for the rest of the world, and we can’t afford to wait for the rest of the world.
Governments can follow the United States and Mexico and commit to strong post-2020 plans that mitigate the impacts of climate, and that will increase the chances that we can have a successful outcome at the Paris negotiations that will take place this December. All the countries of the world will be coming together in Paris to try to deal with climate change, and we all need to live up to our responsibility to set the targets now so this can be successful.
Second, we can encourage governments, businesses, and consumers to rely less on costly fossil fuels. That means investing more in mass transit, in renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, sustainable hydro. It’s why, in Jamaica earlier today, President Obama launched a new Clean Energy Finance Facility for Central America and the Caribbean and a task force to do everything that we can do in order to promote clean energy development and energy security.
Third, we can push for the world’s highest standards in the environmental chapters of the trade agreements that some of us are pursuing, and that includes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, which will build prosperity throughout our hemisphere, and it will do so based on shared principles and shared values. It’s not just a technical trade agreement. It’s a strategic opportunity for all of us, and we need to seize it.
Finally, we can bring the private and public sectors together with our leading academic institutions – with all of you – to make the most of the innovative clean energy technology that entrepreneurs are developing today, including technology that increases the efficiency of appliances, vehicles, and machines.
So there we have it, ladies and gentlemen: Education, innovation, conservation. Three words. One big challenge. And I have absolute confidence in our ability to succeed. But it is going to take all of us, working together, getting rid of the ideology, getting rid of the politics, looking at each other and talking common sense and coming together to make our shared vision a reality for this hemisphere. And in the doing of it, there are millions of jobs to be created. Life will be better. Health will be better. The environment will be better. The economy will be better. And security will be better.
More than a century ago, one of my predecessors visited Panama at a time of great challenge and opportunity in the region. On his tour through the entire region, he spoke at a meeting of the American Republics in Rio de Janeiro. And he said simply this, I quote: “Not in a single conference, nor by a single effort, can very much be done. You labor more for the future than for the present; but if the right impulse be given, if the right tendency be established, the work you do here will go on among all the millions of people in the American continents long after your final adjournment, long after your lives, with incalculable benefit to all of our beloved countries.” That’s the challenge.
The seventh Summit of the Americas may be just a single conference, but it reflects an energy and a determination and a set of hopes and aspirations that connects the present to the future in a way that could not be more uplifting or real. Because when we join together to expand the boundaries of education, to unleash the spirit of innovation that is so widely present in our young, and to harness clean and renewable sources of power – when we change what tomorrow will look like for hundreds of millions of people from the Chilean foothills to the furthest reaches of Alaska’s North Slopes – when we do that, we’re meeting our obligations as citizens, not just of our countries but of the world.
Obviously, we are looking at a time of great challenge, with particular parts of the world witnessing upheaval and violence. Governance is more demanding as it deals with greater cultural, religious, ideological complexity in a world of instant communications. But the same thing that brings us the complexity actually brings us greater opportunity, and we have, all of us, learned lessons from the past.
So here at the dawn of the 21st century, here at the seventh Summit of the Americas, I hope we will overcome the stereotypes and not fall victim to the cynicism, but rather make the most of this extraordinary period of innovation, entrepreneurial activity, and individual opportunity. And I have great faith in the Americas’ ability to lead the world in doing that. Thank you all very, very much.
Remarks at "Foro de Rectores de Las Americas"
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Panama City, Panama
April 9, 2015
Thank you so much. Thank you. Muchas gracias and buenos tardes. I’m very honored to be here. University rectors and the Ministry of Education representatives and students, distinguished guests: It’s really a pleasure for me to be here at this historic Summit, and I deeply appreciate the chance to share a few thoughts with you here this afternoon.
Let me begin by thanking Education Minister Marcela Paredes not just for her generous introduction, which I could have listened to all night – (laughter) – but for her remarkable commitment to educational opportunities throughout the hemisphere. She is a great leader and a great spokesperson for what we’ve come here to talk about today.
And I met Minister Paredes when I came here – it was my first meeting with her during President Varela’s inauguration. And I brought with me at that time as a guest the now former governor of Massachusetts – he was then the governor – Deval Patrick, and he’s a huge education passionate advocate. And I want you to know that when the two of them got together and started talking about what they were able to do to promote education, it took over the whole meeting; it was finished.
Minister Varela summed up the challenge that we face when she said that we must “reflect on our starting points on where we stand, on where we want to go, and how to better invest our resources in order to adapt them to the needs of children’s education.”
Now, I think everyone in this room shares that conviction. In a world that is changing faster and becoming more interconnected than ever before, education more so than ever before, is the ladder of opportunity for people all across the planet. And that is why the expansion of educational opportunity has, from the beginning, been a central focus of the Summit of the Americas. It is why President Obama launched 100,000 Strong in the Americas to increase the number of young people from the region who are studying in the United States and the number of students from the United States attending universities in the region. It is why, here in Panama, President Varela began the Panama Bilingue program, which sends more than a thousand school teachers each year to universities in the United States and the United Kingdom for professional training. And I hope we will all say thank you to Eneida Lopez and Marta Lewis de Cardoze of the Galindo Foundation for their leadership of Panama Bilingue. We are grateful for what they do. (Applause.)
In 1994, when President Clinton invited 33 democratically elected leaders to Miami for the first Summit of the Americas, those leaders had a shared understanding of the mission. Together, they pledged to open new markets, create free trade zones, strengthen democratic institutions, respect human rights, and invest in the building blocks of social progress – including health care and education at all levels. President Clinton said simply: “If we’re successful, the summit will lead to more jobs, opportunity and prosperity for our children and for generations to come.”
Today, as we gather in Panama City for the Seventh Summit, we find ourselves encouraged by the progress that has been made. We also find ourselves determined to close the gaps that still exist, and more aware than ever that we will go forward together or we’ll fall back together.
Now, the progress has not always been steady. It hasn’t always been fast. But progress has been hard won. I think about the first trip that I made to Central America as a United States Senator. This was almost 30 years ago now, a time when much of the hemisphere seemed to wind up in the headlines for only for the wrong reasons – for wars, military governments, narcotics cartels – you name it. Few people back then were certain of a brighter future. Fewer probably thought we could turn the tide.
Well, today, the tide has turned and it has been turning for some time, thanks to the efforts of everybody in the region itself.
In country after country, the people of the Americas have strengthened their democracies and taken steps to ensure the fundamental freedoms of their citizens. And in many places, democracy has brought not only freedom from fear, but freedom from want. In the last decade, the economies of Latin America and the Caribbean grew at a rate of 4 percent a year. Incomes are rising. The middle class is growing. And the gap, the gap between the rich and poor – though still far too wide – is narrowing faster than in any other region.
We’ve also learned an important lesson since 1994 – and that is the extent to which progress depends not only on what governments do on their own, but on how willing they are to listen, to experiment, and to act in partnership with the private sector, civil society, educators, leaders from the scientific community. In our era, in this day and age, each day we wake up to a new world. We have to move forward constantly just to keep pace. And our democracies, frankly – ours too in the United States – need to be more agile; they need to be more responsive to citizens’ demands for greater opportunity and for greater accountability. And to get ahead, it is imperative that we set ambitious goals. We have to pursue them relentlessly. We have to hold people in public office like myself accountable. And we have to mean -- sometimes we have to actually upset some people and take a few risks. None of us should be willing to settle for the status quo. It’s unacceptable.
And that is why this first-ever Rectors’ Forum at the Summit of the Americas is so important. And the question we have to ask ourselves is: How do we together best work to create jobs, to create opportunity, to build prosperity for our children and for generations to come?
Well, let me offer an answer to the questions I just asked. There’s really a three-word answer to that question: Education, innovation, conservation.
Now make no mistake: These three words articulate not separate, but rather interlocking challenges. Without learning, our citizens will lack the knowledge and the skills that they have to have to compete in the 21st century in this new, fast-moving information age, information management economy. And without innovation, many of those who graduate from top universities will still be unable to find good jobs. And without clean energy, our economies will be held hostage to costly, unpredictable, nonrenewable resources of power, and that will lead to uneven growth and ultimately, I promise you, it will threaten the very future of all of us. What this means is that we have to tackle these three challenges simultaneously, and believe me, that’s what we intend to do.
Start with education.
We all know that education is a lifelong process. But it has to begin in the earliest days. It has to begin correctly – the earliest days. The brain of a child grows mostly in the first three years, certainly the first three to seven to eight years are the most important in terms of ability to learn for a lifetime. In the United States, we have seen a big push in recent years in order to try to move towards expanding access to kindergarten, so that children start learning as soon as they are able to. Globally, one of the Millennium Development Goals has been to ensure that every child – girls and boys – are able to attend primary school. Enormous progress has been made in that direction, and in our hemisphere, primary school attendance is now very near universal. That’s the good news.
Other areas are more troublesome, and this is true in my country as well as many of yours.
For example, we have to be sure that between the time that our children enter school each morning and the time that they leave in the afternoon, they actually learn something. Sitting in a classroom and getting an education are not the same things. There is no shortcut to investing in good teachers, providing quality professional development, and compensating people fairly for the work that they do.
We also have to find better ways to incorporate new curriculum methods and technology into the learning process; just giving a child a tablet or a laptop is not enough. You have to instill the desire in that child to want to learn more, to think critically, and the belief that success in school will actually translate into success in life. And if and only if we are able to do those things will we reduce the alarming number of students who enter the system but then they drop out before graduating from college, from secondary school or – in too many cases – even the seventh or eighth grade.
Another major task that we face in education today is to strengthen the connection between report cards that we give to kids and the paychecks that they’re able to earn afterwards. As this remarkable gathering reflects, there are fine colleges and universities in every part of our hemisphere, from the University of Sao Paulo to the Monterrey Institute of Technology to the Catholic University of Chile. But there is a troubling gap between the skills that schools teach and the expertise that the job market demands. Many of the region’s young people graduate with degrees that leave them ill-suited for available positions. And this gap is as frustrating to our students as it is to potential employers – and we’re working to bridge it and we all need to work to bridge it together.
Given the number of young people in the region, this basically ought to be a fixable problem. In the United States, we have developed a very strong community college system, and it is empowered by direct involvement in the curriculum design and hands-on career counseling from the private sector. And that’s how we try to bridge the gap, by getting the private sector involved in the curriculum. And that’s why President Obama has proposed to Congress the enactment of legislation that would guarantee access to community college for every student who applies for it, regardless of their ability to pay. It’s why, in Jamaica earlier today, President Obama announced $68 million in new funding for programs that will expand education, training, and employment programs for youth throughout Central America and the Caribbean.
And I am especially pleased that we are joined this evening by the Secretary of State of Puerto Rico. The Secretary is here with a number of Puerto Rican rectors whose universities are ready to welcome Latin American and Caribbean students to an American educational experience on the Isla del Encanto.
So we’re approaching this issue with the urgency that it deserves. At the 2009 Summit of the Americas, the United States launched our Scholarships for Economic Growth program, which provided $50 million for 1,300 students from Latin America and the Caribbean to be able to get vocational training in the United States. President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas builds on that effort, and the results speak for themselves: Already, more than 72,000 students are coming to the United States each year from Latin America and the Caribbean. And nearly 47,000 U.S. students benefit from studying abroad in the region. Students like Natascha Moscoa from Costa Rica and Day Moore from Connecticut, who started a joint venture to empower women entrepreneurs. Students like Luis Santiago from the Dominican Republic, who studied in Chicago and then returned home to promote innovation and expand information in his community.
Their success reflects a very important truth. Students who are able to spend a portion of their time learning in other countries have a significant advantage: They return home equipped with greater confidence, new skills, the ability to speak a foreign language and they work the ability to also work in a foreign culture. And guess what – they come back with friends and contacts that will last a lifetime. I cannot tell you how many foreign ministers I have met in the course of serving as Secretary of State who say to me: I so enjoyed my time learning at Columbia or California or wherever it was, and vice versa; I meet people who tell me how much they learned when they went to study in another country. It makes all the difference in the world.
That’s why the United States isn’t just continuing the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative. Guess what – we’re doubling down on that initiative. We’ve already raised millions of dollars from the private sector for the Innovation Fund, which awards grants to universities to promote study abroad and programs between the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere. We’ve awarded 47 grants to more than 100 higher education institutions across the region in order to expand their capacity to send and to host exchange students. We believe in this program. And today, I am pleased to congratulate the most recent Innovation Fund grant winners in the United States, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, and Paraguay. These university partnerships will create new exchange programs for students that can have a transformative impact, which is exactly why they are such a high priority for me as Secretary of State.
Now, all of this leads to the second big challenge that I want to just say a word about today – and that concerns the jobs of the future. Nothing will be meaningful, no expectations will be met, without jobs – good jobs that genuinely open the doors of opportunity and improve the quality of life. What are these jobs? Where are they going to come from? How are they going to be developed? Who is going to benefit from them the most?
I’m willing to bet that at the heart of any story that you have heard about someone lifting themselves out of poverty, there’s a new job, a new opportunity to make a better living that came to them. Well, in Latin America and in the Caribbean, as in the United States and Canada, more than half of the new jobs are created by small and medium-size businesses. So if our goal is to reduce poverty, expand the middle class, help families create a better life for their children, the answer’s pretty simple – we need to innovate. And that means doing more to help small businesses create jobs and tap into global markets.
Now, you think I’m making this up, that this is not a reality? Believe me, we are – I’m able to say this to you because we’re doing it.
America is fortunate – the United States is fortunate to possess one of the world’s most extensive small business support networks. I saw this firsthand when I served as Chairman of the Small Business Committee in the United States Senate. The Small Business Administration, led by my colleague Maria Contreras-Sweet, provides training and counseling services to a million small businesses every year at more than 1,000 small business development centers that we have created across our country. And I’m proud that the agency has become a model for the region.
Just run the list: Brazil’s SEBRAE centers support more than a million small businesses across Brazil. Mexico has created a new National Entrepreneurship Institute, which is working to integrate hundreds of incubators and small business development centers. In Chile, President Bachelet has undertaken a new initiative to create 50 small business development centers. And El Salvador has shown great leadership in Central America by dedicating scarce resources to support 12 centers.
So we really have a great foundation to build on. But the fact is, you can never do too much to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. You just can’t. And that is exactly why President Obama launched the Small Business Network of the Americas to connect thousands of centers across the hemisphere and help entrepreneurs get the training and the counseling and the support that they need in order to enter new markets. One of the things that I learned when I was chairman of the committee was a lot of people have no idea how actually easy it is to access a global marketplace. And with a little bit of help, a mom or a pop enterprise of two or three people can become 12, and 15, and 20, and grow into a larger business. Many of these connection points that I’m talking about are located on university campuses. And I encourage all of you to speak to your counterparts in El Salvador, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and the United States, and other countries that are embracing this kind of concept and that are getting the benefits of it as a result.
Now, without doubt, I’m sure you’ll all agree, one of the smartest investments that we can make is on the promise of women and girls. In too many parts of the world still, there’s a discrimination and they’re left behind. No country – no country can make it in today’s world leaving half of its population on the bench. No economy can thrive when women are not given a seat at the table. And that’s why President Obama launched the Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas Initiative: To give women and girls the training and the tools that they need to become the next presidents, CEOs, and entrepreneurs in their communities. And one thing that we know for certain: Empowering women is an investment that is guaranteed to show enormous returns, not just in terms of the balance sheet but in terms of the social structure, and often in terms of peace and stability.
So education and innovation are critical. But we also need to think ahead and realize that the strongest economies will be built on the power sources of the future, not the past. Many of the clean energy technologies that will help ignite whole new industries are far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were just 10 years ago – and we can use them, we must use them, to curb climate change even as we know they have all the benefits on the upside of creating new jobs. The solution to climate change, my friends, which is real and coming at us fast, is energy policy – good energy policy makes good climate solutions. It’s that simple.
Just imagine the possibilities. We were blessed in America to see more growth in the 1990s than at any recent time in American history – in recent history, since the 1920s, the great age of wealth creation when there was no income tax, and the early part of the Industrial Revolution. But the market of the 1990s, which saw every single income level in America go up, was a 1 trillion dollar market, with 1 billion users. The global energy market we are looking at today is a 6 trillion dollar market already with 4 to 5 billion users, and it’s going to go up to 9 billion users as the population of the planet grows in the next 30, 40 years. Think of that: 9 billion users in the next decades. By 2040, investment in the power sector is expected to reach nearly $20 trillion. That is an enormous amount of investment. And we want to see clean, accessible energy be the biggest slice of that pie.
So how do realize the full potential of this opportunity?
To begin, we need leaders with the political courage to set us on the right path. And I am proud to serve with a President who has accepted that challenge. Today, thanks to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, the United States is well on its way to meeting our international commitments to cut greenhouse gases emissions by 2020. And that’s because we’re going straight to the largest sources of pollution. We’re targeting emissions from cars, trucks, utilities, which account for about 60 percent of greenhouse gases that we release. And we’re also tackling more modest opportunities so that we cover every sector of the economy and every variety of greenhouse gas.
We’re also investing in cleaner alternatives. Since President Obama took office, the United States has upped its wind energy production by three times. We’ve increased our solar energy generation more than ten times. We’ve also become smarter about the way we use energy in our homes and in our businesses. And all of these are big steps.
But I can’t emphasize this fact enough: No single country – not China, not the United States, not India – no single country can solve this problem or foot this bill alone. Climate change is not an abstract future concern. Its effects are already on us right now. I think we had something like $110 billion of costs last year to make up for the fires and the floods and the extraordinary storms and all of the damage that was done by increased tides and so forth.
Here in Panama, extreme weather events are creating cycles of flood and drought and they’re threatening the water supplies that enable the Panama Canal to operate effectively and supply electricity. Just a few years ago, due to a record storm, the canal had to close for only the third time in its 100-year history, disrupting one of the world’s most important economic lifelines. In Peru, where I attended the climate change conference in December, tropical glaciers and fisheries are under threat. We’ve seen sea level rise contribute to the erosion of Puerto Rico’s coastline around Rincon. And coral reefs are at risk from warming waters and ocean acidification. The number of major hurricanes in the Atlantic basin has increased and then it increased some more, and that hurts tourism. Some of your nations, especially those in this region and in the Caribbean, climate change may well be the single gravest danger to security and prosperity. So when I say we need a global solution, I mean it. Anything less won’t work.
But still in our hemisphere, there are several steps that we can take without waiting for the rest of the world. You don’t have to wait for the rest of the world, and we can’t afford to wait for the rest of the world.
Governments can follow the United States and Mexico and commit to strong post-2020 plans that mitigate the impacts of climate, and that will increase the chances that we can have a successful outcome at the Paris negotiations that will take place this December. All the countries of the world will be coming together in Paris to try to deal with climate change, and we all need to live up to our responsibility to set the targets now so this can be successful.
Second, we can encourage governments, businesses, and consumers to rely less on costly fossil fuels. That means investing more in mass transit, in renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, sustainable hydro. It’s why, in Jamaica earlier today, President Obama launched a new Clean Energy Finance Facility for Central America and the Caribbean and a task force to do everything that we can do in order to promote clean energy development and energy security.
Third, we can push for the world’s highest standards in the environmental chapters of the trade agreements that some of us are pursuing, and that includes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, which will build prosperity throughout our hemisphere, and it will do so based on shared principles and shared values. It’s not just a technical trade agreement. It’s a strategic opportunity for all of us, and we need to seize it.
Finally, we can bring the private and public sectors together with our leading academic institutions – with all of you – to make the most of the innovative clean energy technology that entrepreneurs are developing today, including technology that increases the efficiency of appliances, vehicles, and machines.
So there we have it, ladies and gentlemen: Education, innovation, conservation. Three words. One big challenge. And I have absolute confidence in our ability to succeed. But it is going to take all of us, working together, getting rid of the ideology, getting rid of the politics, looking at each other and talking common sense and coming together to make our shared vision a reality for this hemisphere. And in the doing of it, there are millions of jobs to be created. Life will be better. Health will be better. The environment will be better. The economy will be better. And security will be better.
More than a century ago, one of my predecessors visited Panama at a time of great challenge and opportunity in the region. On his tour through the entire region, he spoke at a meeting of the American Republics in Rio de Janeiro. And he said simply this, I quote: “Not in a single conference, nor by a single effort, can very much be done. You labor more for the future than for the present; but if the right impulse be given, if the right tendency be established, the work you do here will go on among all the millions of people in the American continents long after your final adjournment, long after your lives, with incalculable benefit to all of our beloved countries.” That’s the challenge.
The seventh Summit of the Americas may be just a single conference, but it reflects an energy and a determination and a set of hopes and aspirations that connects the present to the future in a way that could not be more uplifting or real. Because when we join together to expand the boundaries of education, to unleash the spirit of innovation that is so widely present in our young, and to harness clean and renewable sources of power – when we change what tomorrow will look like for hundreds of millions of people from the Chilean foothills to the furthest reaches of Alaska’s North Slopes – when we do that, we’re meeting our obligations as citizens, not just of our countries but of the world.
Obviously, we are looking at a time of great challenge, with particular parts of the world witnessing upheaval and violence. Governance is more demanding as it deals with greater cultural, religious, ideological complexity in a world of instant communications. But the same thing that brings us the complexity actually brings us greater opportunity, and we have, all of us, learned lessons from the past.
So here at the dawn of the 21st century, here at the seventh Summit of the Americas, I hope we will overcome the stereotypes and not fall victim to the cynicism, but rather make the most of this extraordinary period of innovation, entrepreneurial activity, and individual opportunity. And I have great faith in the Americas’ ability to lead the world in doing that. Thank you all very, very much.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
VA HAS NEW GRANTS TO HELP HOMELESS VETS
FROM: U.S. VETERANS ADMINISTRATION
VA Announces New Grants to Help End Veteran Homelessness
March 31, 2015, 02:04:00 PM
VA Announces New Grants to Help End Veteran Homelessness
Initiative Targets 45,000 Homeless and At-Risk Vets and Families in High Need Communities
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald today announced the award of nearly $93 million in Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) 3-year grants that will help approximately 45,000 homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. The grants will be distributed to 24 non-profit agencies in 15 communities, with $30 million in awards being distributed to the Los Angeles area.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to using evidence-based approaches such as SSVF to prevent homelessness and produce successful outcomes for Veterans and their families,” said Secretary McDonald. “This is a program that works, because it allows VA staff and local homeless service providers to work together to effectively address the unique challenges that make it difficult for some Veterans and their families to remain stably housed.”
Under the SSVF program, VA is awarding grants to private, non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives that provide services to very low-income Veteran families living in – or transitioning to – permanent housing. The grants announced today will provide additional resources to the fourth year operations of the SSVF program.
“With the addition of these crucial resources, communities across the country continue an historic drive to prevent and end homelessness among Veterans,” said Matthew Doherty, Acting Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “The SSVF program gives Veterans and their families the rapid assistance they need to remain in permanent housing or get back into permanent housing as quickly as possible.”
Through the homeless Veterans initiative, VA committed more than $1 billion in FY 2014 to strengthen programs that prevent and end homelessness among Veterans. VA provides a range of services to homeless Veterans, including health care, housing, job training and education.
VA Announces New Grants to Help End Veteran Homelessness
March 31, 2015, 02:04:00 PM
VA Announces New Grants to Help End Veteran Homelessness
Initiative Targets 45,000 Homeless and At-Risk Vets and Families in High Need Communities
WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald today announced the award of nearly $93 million in Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) 3-year grants that will help approximately 45,000 homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. The grants will be distributed to 24 non-profit agencies in 15 communities, with $30 million in awards being distributed to the Los Angeles area.
“The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to using evidence-based approaches such as SSVF to prevent homelessness and produce successful outcomes for Veterans and their families,” said Secretary McDonald. “This is a program that works, because it allows VA staff and local homeless service providers to work together to effectively address the unique challenges that make it difficult for some Veterans and their families to remain stably housed.”
Under the SSVF program, VA is awarding grants to private, non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives that provide services to very low-income Veteran families living in – or transitioning to – permanent housing. The grants announced today will provide additional resources to the fourth year operations of the SSVF program.
“With the addition of these crucial resources, communities across the country continue an historic drive to prevent and end homelessness among Veterans,” said Matthew Doherty, Acting Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “The SSVF program gives Veterans and their families the rapid assistance they need to remain in permanent housing or get back into permanent housing as quickly as possible.”
Through the homeless Veterans initiative, VA committed more than $1 billion in FY 2014 to strengthen programs that prevent and end homelessness among Veterans. VA provides a range of services to homeless Veterans, including health care, housing, job training and education.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
HHS TARGETS PRESCRIPTION OPIOID AND HEROIN RELATED OVERDOSING
FROM: DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
March 26, 2015
HHS takes strong steps to address opioid-drug related overdose, death and dependence
Evidence-based, bipartisan efforts focus on prescribing practices and treatment to reduce prescription opioid and heroin use disorders
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell today announced a targeted initiative aimed at reducing prescription opioid and heroin related overdose, death and dependence. Deaths from drug overdose have risen steadily over the past two decades and currently outnumber deaths from car accidents in the United States. The President’s FY 2016 budget includes critical investments to intensify efforts to reduce opioid misuse and abuse, including $133 million in new funding to address this critical issue.
The Secretary’s efforts focus on three priority areas that tackle the opioid crisis, significantly impacting those struggling with substance use disorders and helping save lives.
Providing training and educational resources, including updated prescriber guidelines, to assist health professionals in making informed prescribing decisions and address the over-prescribing of opioids.
Increasing use of naloxone, as well as continuing to support the development and distribution of the life-saving drug, to help reduce the number of deaths associated with prescription opioid and heroin overdose.
Expanding the use of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), a comprehensive way to address the needs of individuals that combines the use of medication with counseling and behavioral therapies to treat substance use disorders.
Addressing the opioid crisis is a top priority for the department and the Secretary is committed to bipartisan solutions and evidence-informed interventions to turn the tide against opioid drug-related overdose and misuse.
“Opioid drug abuse is a devastating epidemic facing our nation. I have seen firsthand, in my home state of West Virginia, a state struggling with this very real crisis, the impact of opioid addiction. That’s why I’m taking a targeted approach to tackling this issue focused on prevention, treatment and intervention,” said Secretary Burwell. “I also know we can’t do this alone. We need all stakeholders to come together to fight the opioid epidemic.”
Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics—a class of prescription drugs used to treat both acute and chronic pain such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, morphine, and methadone, have increasingly been implicated in drug overdose deaths over the last decade. Deaths related to heroin have also sharply increased since 2010, with a 39 percent increase between 2012 and 2013.
Among drug overdose deaths in 2013, approximately 37 percent involved prescription opioids. Given these alarming trends, it is time for a sustainable response to prevent and treat opioid use disorders.
As part of these priority areas, the Secretary’s efforts build on current HHS strategies to address the opioid epidemic and expands many of the most promising initiatives with the greatest potential for impact, including:
Helping health professionals to make the most informed prescribing decisions:
Teaching medical professionals how and when to prescribe opioids by working with lawmakers on bipartisan legislation requiring specific training for safe opioid prescribing and establishing new opioid prescribing guidelines for chronic pain
Supporting data sharing for safe prescribing by facilitating prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) and health information technology integration and further adoption of electronic prescribing practices
Increasing investments in state-level prevention interventions, including PDMPs, to track opioid prescribing and support appropriate pain management
Increasing use of naloxone:
Supporting the development, review, and approval of new naloxone products and delivery options
Promoting state use of Substance Abuse Block Grant funds to purchase naloxone
Implementing the Prescription Drug Overdose grant program for states to purchase naloxone and train first responders on its use
Expanding use of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT):
Launching a grant program in FY 2015 to improve access to MAT services through education, training, and purchase of MAT medications for treatment of prescription opioid and heroin addiction
Exploring bipartisan policy changes to increase use of buprenorphine and develop the training to assist prescribing
Through bipartisan work across the federal government and with Capitol Hill, as well as strategic partnerships with states and private industry, Secretary Burwell will work to address the current opioid epidemic and reduce prescription opioid and heroin overdoses and deaths.
On March 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention for States program to provide state health departments with resources to enhance their PDMPs and advance innovative prevention efforts. This funding will support approximately 16 states in implementing robust prevention programs to improve safe prescribing practices and turn the tide on the prescription drug overdose epidemic. The application period is currently open to states. As part of her efforts to combat the opioid crisis as outlined above, Secretary Burwell included in the HHS 2016 budget a major expansion of this program so that this critical investment can reach all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The Food and Drug Administration also plays an integral role in combatting opioid drug-related abuse and misuse from its review of products to monitoring use after distribution. FDA will continue to use its expedited review authorities to encourage the development of non-opioid pain medications intended to treat chronic pain. FDA also supports the wider use of naloxone and is working to support the development of abuse-deterrent opioid products.
March 26, 2015
HHS takes strong steps to address opioid-drug related overdose, death and dependence
Evidence-based, bipartisan efforts focus on prescribing practices and treatment to reduce prescription opioid and heroin use disorders
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell today announced a targeted initiative aimed at reducing prescription opioid and heroin related overdose, death and dependence. Deaths from drug overdose have risen steadily over the past two decades and currently outnumber deaths from car accidents in the United States. The President’s FY 2016 budget includes critical investments to intensify efforts to reduce opioid misuse and abuse, including $133 million in new funding to address this critical issue.
The Secretary’s efforts focus on three priority areas that tackle the opioid crisis, significantly impacting those struggling with substance use disorders and helping save lives.
Providing training and educational resources, including updated prescriber guidelines, to assist health professionals in making informed prescribing decisions and address the over-prescribing of opioids.
Increasing use of naloxone, as well as continuing to support the development and distribution of the life-saving drug, to help reduce the number of deaths associated with prescription opioid and heroin overdose.
Expanding the use of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), a comprehensive way to address the needs of individuals that combines the use of medication with counseling and behavioral therapies to treat substance use disorders.
Addressing the opioid crisis is a top priority for the department and the Secretary is committed to bipartisan solutions and evidence-informed interventions to turn the tide against opioid drug-related overdose and misuse.
“Opioid drug abuse is a devastating epidemic facing our nation. I have seen firsthand, in my home state of West Virginia, a state struggling with this very real crisis, the impact of opioid addiction. That’s why I’m taking a targeted approach to tackling this issue focused on prevention, treatment and intervention,” said Secretary Burwell. “I also know we can’t do this alone. We need all stakeholders to come together to fight the opioid epidemic.”
Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics—a class of prescription drugs used to treat both acute and chronic pain such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, morphine, and methadone, have increasingly been implicated in drug overdose deaths over the last decade. Deaths related to heroin have also sharply increased since 2010, with a 39 percent increase between 2012 and 2013.
Among drug overdose deaths in 2013, approximately 37 percent involved prescription opioids. Given these alarming trends, it is time for a sustainable response to prevent and treat opioid use disorders.
As part of these priority areas, the Secretary’s efforts build on current HHS strategies to address the opioid epidemic and expands many of the most promising initiatives with the greatest potential for impact, including:
Helping health professionals to make the most informed prescribing decisions:
Teaching medical professionals how and when to prescribe opioids by working with lawmakers on bipartisan legislation requiring specific training for safe opioid prescribing and establishing new opioid prescribing guidelines for chronic pain
Supporting data sharing for safe prescribing by facilitating prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) and health information technology integration and further adoption of electronic prescribing practices
Increasing investments in state-level prevention interventions, including PDMPs, to track opioid prescribing and support appropriate pain management
Increasing use of naloxone:
Supporting the development, review, and approval of new naloxone products and delivery options
Promoting state use of Substance Abuse Block Grant funds to purchase naloxone
Implementing the Prescription Drug Overdose grant program for states to purchase naloxone and train first responders on its use
Expanding use of Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT):
Launching a grant program in FY 2015 to improve access to MAT services through education, training, and purchase of MAT medications for treatment of prescription opioid and heroin addiction
Exploring bipartisan policy changes to increase use of buprenorphine and develop the training to assist prescribing
Through bipartisan work across the federal government and with Capitol Hill, as well as strategic partnerships with states and private industry, Secretary Burwell will work to address the current opioid epidemic and reduce prescription opioid and heroin overdoses and deaths.
On March 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention for States program to provide state health departments with resources to enhance their PDMPs and advance innovative prevention efforts. This funding will support approximately 16 states in implementing robust prevention programs to improve safe prescribing practices and turn the tide on the prescription drug overdose epidemic. The application period is currently open to states. As part of her efforts to combat the opioid crisis as outlined above, Secretary Burwell included in the HHS 2016 budget a major expansion of this program so that this critical investment can reach all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The Food and Drug Administration also plays an integral role in combatting opioid drug-related abuse and misuse from its review of products to monitoring use after distribution. FDA will continue to use its expedited review authorities to encourage the development of non-opioid pain medications intended to treat chronic pain. FDA also supports the wider use of naloxone and is working to support the development of abuse-deterrent opioid products.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
WHITE HOUSE FACT SHEET ON SUPPORTING THE ALLIANCE FOR PROSPERITY IN THE NORTHERN TRIANGLE
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
March 03, 2015
FACT SHEET: Support for the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle
Vice President Biden traveled to Guatemala March 2-3 for two days of meetings with the Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno, to advance implementation of the “Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle” announced last November in Washington, DC. The Vice President was accompanied by State Department Counselor Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, Under Secretary of Commerce Stefan Selig, USAID Associate Administrator Mark Feierstein, Southcom Commander General John Kelly, and Inter-American Development Bank U.S. Executive Director Mark Lopes.
This week's meetings provided an opportunity for the leaders to discuss steps to stimulate economic growth, reduce inequality, promote educational opportunities, target criminal networks responsible for human trafficking, and help create governance and institutions that are transparent and accountable.
During working group meetings on March 3, Northern Triangle leaders committed in a Joint Statement to specific actions to advance implementation of the Alliance for Prosperity, in cooperation with the United States and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Specific commitments made by the leaders included the following:
- The United States and Northern Triangle governments agreed to hold a regional security dialogue in May 2015;
- The Northern Triangle governments agreed to expand centers in high-crime neighborhoods for at-risk youth to acquire job and life skills and participate in recreational activities in a safe environment;
- They agreed to create independent governmental auditing mechanisms by the end of 2015 to help combat corruption;
- Honduras will introduce a plan for police service reform by June 2015;
- Honduras will recruit, train, and deploy an additional 6,000 police over the next three years;
- El Salvador will present a bill criminalizing bulk cash smuggling by June 2015;
- Guatemala will introduce legislation to transition from an inquisitorial to an accusatorial judicial system by December 2015;
- The Northern Triangle countries agreed to diversify their energy matrix in 2015, to include promoting the completion of a gas pipeline from Mexico to Central America;
- They agreed to promote an integrated, efficient energy market by modifying the regulations governing the regional electricity market by 2016;
- The leaders agreed to hold advisory meetings by Summer 2015 to promote private investment;
- Guatemala and Honduras agreed to implement their recently announced Customs Union by December 2015;
- The Northern Triangle governments agreed to establish a government “single window” for foreign investors by December 2015;
- They agreed to develop public investment plans for the areas of greatest economic need by April 2015;
- They agreed to develop education investment plans focusing on pre-school, secondary, and vocational schools by the end of 2016;
- The Northern Triangle leaders agreed to develop specific strategies for women’s economic empowerment by 2016;
- Guatemala will create specialized anti-money laundering, asset forfeiture, and cybercrime units by June 2015;
- The three Northern Triangle countries agreed to develop a plan to professionalize civil services beginning in 2015;
- They committed to strengthen their tax base through better tax administration, more robust tax authorities, and tax code simplification.
Foreign Ministers from the three countries also agreed to present a detailed implementation roadmap for the Alliance for Prosperity at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington on March 16, 2015. The leaders also agreed to meet during the first half of 2015 with private sector and civil society stakeholders to receive feedback on the roadmap.
In addition to the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request which included $1 billion for Central America, the Vice President announced that the Administration would work with Congress to increase assistance to the region in Fiscal Year 2015.
March 03, 2015
FACT SHEET: Support for the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle
Vice President Biden traveled to Guatemala March 2-3 for two days of meetings with the Presidents of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno, to advance implementation of the “Plan of the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle” announced last November in Washington, DC. The Vice President was accompanied by State Department Counselor Thomas A. Shannon, Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, Under Secretary of Commerce Stefan Selig, USAID Associate Administrator Mark Feierstein, Southcom Commander General John Kelly, and Inter-American Development Bank U.S. Executive Director Mark Lopes.
This week's meetings provided an opportunity for the leaders to discuss steps to stimulate economic growth, reduce inequality, promote educational opportunities, target criminal networks responsible for human trafficking, and help create governance and institutions that are transparent and accountable.
During working group meetings on March 3, Northern Triangle leaders committed in a Joint Statement to specific actions to advance implementation of the Alliance for Prosperity, in cooperation with the United States and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Specific commitments made by the leaders included the following:
- The United States and Northern Triangle governments agreed to hold a regional security dialogue in May 2015;
- The Northern Triangle governments agreed to expand centers in high-crime neighborhoods for at-risk youth to acquire job and life skills and participate in recreational activities in a safe environment;
- They agreed to create independent governmental auditing mechanisms by the end of 2015 to help combat corruption;
- Honduras will introduce a plan for police service reform by June 2015;
- Honduras will recruit, train, and deploy an additional 6,000 police over the next three years;
- El Salvador will present a bill criminalizing bulk cash smuggling by June 2015;
- Guatemala will introduce legislation to transition from an inquisitorial to an accusatorial judicial system by December 2015;
- The Northern Triangle countries agreed to diversify their energy matrix in 2015, to include promoting the completion of a gas pipeline from Mexico to Central America;
- They agreed to promote an integrated, efficient energy market by modifying the regulations governing the regional electricity market by 2016;
- The leaders agreed to hold advisory meetings by Summer 2015 to promote private investment;
- Guatemala and Honduras agreed to implement their recently announced Customs Union by December 2015;
- The Northern Triangle governments agreed to establish a government “single window” for foreign investors by December 2015;
- They agreed to develop public investment plans for the areas of greatest economic need by April 2015;
- They agreed to develop education investment plans focusing on pre-school, secondary, and vocational schools by the end of 2016;
- The Northern Triangle leaders agreed to develop specific strategies for women’s economic empowerment by 2016;
- Guatemala will create specialized anti-money laundering, asset forfeiture, and cybercrime units by June 2015;
- The three Northern Triangle countries agreed to develop a plan to professionalize civil services beginning in 2015;
- They committed to strengthen their tax base through better tax administration, more robust tax authorities, and tax code simplification.
Foreign Ministers from the three countries also agreed to present a detailed implementation roadmap for the Alliance for Prosperity at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington on March 16, 2015. The leaders also agreed to meet during the first half of 2015 with private sector and civil society stakeholders to receive feedback on the roadmap.
In addition to the President’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request which included $1 billion for Central America, the Vice President announced that the Administration would work with Congress to increase assistance to the region in Fiscal Year 2015.
Monday, March 2, 2015
ED. DEPT. ENDS CONTRACTS WITH 5 PRIVATE COLLECTION AGENCIES FOR ALLEGEDLY PROVIDING BORROWERS INACCURATE INFORMATION
FROM: U.S. EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
U.S. Department of Education to End Contracts with Several Private Collection Agencies
After finding high incidences of materially inaccurate representations, Department acts to protect consumers
FEBRUARY 27, 2015
Following a review of 22 private collection agencies, the U.S. Department of Education announced today that it will wind down contracts with five private collection agencies that were providing inaccurate information to borrowers. The five companies are: Coast Professional, Enterprise Recovery Systems, National Recoveries, Pioneer Credit Recovery, and West Asset Management.
The Department also announced that it will provide enhanced Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices monitoring and guidance for all private collection agencies that work with the Department to ensure that companies are consistently providing borrowers with accurate information regarding their loans.
"Federal Student Aid borrowers are entitled to accurate information as they make critical choices to manage their debt," said Under Secretary Ted Mitchell. "Every company that works for the Department must keep consumers' best interests at the heart of their business practices by giving borrowers clear and accurate guidance. It is our responsibility – and our commitment – to uphold the highest standards of service for America's student borrowers and consumers."
During the past several months, the Department's Federal Student Aid (FSA) office performed a review of all private collection agencies that FSA works with. In these reviews, the Department sought to ensure that its private collection agencies were complying with the terms of the contract, which includes assurances that the agencies would not engage in unfair or deceptive practices and would comply with all applicable Federal and State laws.
In its review, the Department found that agents of the companies made materially inaccurate representations to borrowers about the loan rehabilitation program, which is an option that can create benefits to defaulted borrowers after they have made nine on-time payments in a period of 10 months. The five private collection agencies listed above were found to have given inaccurate information at unacceptably high rates about these benefits. In particular, these agencies gave borrowers misleading information about the benefits to the borrowers' credit report and about the waiver of certain collection fees.
The Department will reassign accounts held by these five agencies which are not already in repayment to other agencies. The Department will also increase monitoring to ensure that the students who began rehabilitation under the five private collection agencies will be treated fairly as they complete the rehabilitation process. Lastly, the Department will issue enhanced guidance to all remaining private collection agencies, increase internal training for FSA staff, enhance the private collection agency manual, expand monitoring for these types of issues, and refine its internal escalation practices.
FSA administers and oversees the federal student financial assistance programs, authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). These programs represent the largest source of student aid for postsecondary education in the United States. The Office of the Under Secretary manages policies, programs, and activities related to postsecondary education.
U.S. Department of Education to End Contracts with Several Private Collection Agencies
After finding high incidences of materially inaccurate representations, Department acts to protect consumers
FEBRUARY 27, 2015
Following a review of 22 private collection agencies, the U.S. Department of Education announced today that it will wind down contracts with five private collection agencies that were providing inaccurate information to borrowers. The five companies are: Coast Professional, Enterprise Recovery Systems, National Recoveries, Pioneer Credit Recovery, and West Asset Management.
The Department also announced that it will provide enhanced Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices monitoring and guidance for all private collection agencies that work with the Department to ensure that companies are consistently providing borrowers with accurate information regarding their loans.
"Federal Student Aid borrowers are entitled to accurate information as they make critical choices to manage their debt," said Under Secretary Ted Mitchell. "Every company that works for the Department must keep consumers' best interests at the heart of their business practices by giving borrowers clear and accurate guidance. It is our responsibility – and our commitment – to uphold the highest standards of service for America's student borrowers and consumers."
During the past several months, the Department's Federal Student Aid (FSA) office performed a review of all private collection agencies that FSA works with. In these reviews, the Department sought to ensure that its private collection agencies were complying with the terms of the contract, which includes assurances that the agencies would not engage in unfair or deceptive practices and would comply with all applicable Federal and State laws.
In its review, the Department found that agents of the companies made materially inaccurate representations to borrowers about the loan rehabilitation program, which is an option that can create benefits to defaulted borrowers after they have made nine on-time payments in a period of 10 months. The five private collection agencies listed above were found to have given inaccurate information at unacceptably high rates about these benefits. In particular, these agencies gave borrowers misleading information about the benefits to the borrowers' credit report and about the waiver of certain collection fees.
The Department will reassign accounts held by these five agencies which are not already in repayment to other agencies. The Department will also increase monitoring to ensure that the students who began rehabilitation under the five private collection agencies will be treated fairly as they complete the rehabilitation process. Lastly, the Department will issue enhanced guidance to all remaining private collection agencies, increase internal training for FSA staff, enhance the private collection agency manual, expand monitoring for these types of issues, and refine its internal escalation practices.
FSA administers and oversees the federal student financial assistance programs, authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). These programs represent the largest source of student aid for postsecondary education in the United States. The Office of the Under Secretary manages policies, programs, and activities related to postsecondary education.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
VP BIDEN MAKES ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING CYBERSECURITY EDUCATION FUNDING
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
January 15, 2015
Vice President Biden Announces $25 Million in Funding for Cybersecurity Education at HBCUs
Today, Vice President Biden, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and White House Science Advisor John Holdren are traveling to Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia to announce that the Department of Energy will provide a $25 million grant over the next five years to support cybersecurity education. The new grant will support the creation of a new cybersecurity consortium consisting of 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), two national labs, and a k-12 school district.
The Vice President will make the announcement as part of a roundtable discussion with a classroom of cybersecurity leaders and students at Norfolk State University. The visit builds on the President’s announcements on cybersecurity earlier this week, focusing on the critical need to fill the growing demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. job market, while also diversifying the pipeline of talent in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The event and announcement is also an opportunity to highlight the Administration’s ongoing commitment to HBCUs.
Details on the Announcement
As highlighted by the President earlier in the week, the rapid growth of cybercrime is creating a growing need for cybersecurity professionals across a range of industries, from financial services, health care, and retail to the US government itself. By some estimates, the demand for cybersecurity workers is growing 12 times faster than the U.S. job market, and is creating well-paying jobs.
To meet this growing need, the Department of Energy is establishing the Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium with funding from the Minority Serving Institutions Partnerships Program housed in its National Nuclear Security Administration. The Minority Service Institutions Program focuses on building a strong pipeline of talent from minority-serving institutions to DOE labs, with a mix of research collaborations, involvement of DOE scientists in mentoring, teaching and curriculum development, and direct recruitment of students.
With $25M in overall funding over five years, and with the first grants this year, the Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium will bring together 13 HBCUs, two DOE labs, and the Charleston County School District with the goal of creating a sustainable pipeline of students focused on cybersecurity issues. The consortium has a number of core attributes:
It is designed as a system. This allows students that enter through any of the partner schools to have all consortia options available to them, to create career paths and degree options through collaboration between all the partners (labs and schools), and to open the doors to DOE sites and facilities.
It has a range of participating higher education institutions. With Norfolk State University as a the lead, the consortium includes a K-12 school district, a two-year technical college, as well as four-year public and private universities that offer graduate degrees.
Built to change to evolving employer needs: To be successful in the long term, this program is designed to be sufficiently flexible in its organization to reflect the unique regional priorities that Universities have in faculty research and developing STEM disciplines and skills, and DOE site targets for research and critical skill development.
Diversifying the pipeline by working with leading minority-serving institutions: As the President stated in Executive Order 13532, “Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities” in February 2010, America’s HBCUs, for over 150 years, have produced many of the Nation’s leaders in science, business, government, academia, and the military, and have provided generations of American men and women with hope and educational opportunity.
January 15, 2015
Vice President Biden Announces $25 Million in Funding for Cybersecurity Education at HBCUs
Today, Vice President Biden, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and White House Science Advisor John Holdren are traveling to Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia to announce that the Department of Energy will provide a $25 million grant over the next five years to support cybersecurity education. The new grant will support the creation of a new cybersecurity consortium consisting of 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), two national labs, and a k-12 school district.
The Vice President will make the announcement as part of a roundtable discussion with a classroom of cybersecurity leaders and students at Norfolk State University. The visit builds on the President’s announcements on cybersecurity earlier this week, focusing on the critical need to fill the growing demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. job market, while also diversifying the pipeline of talent in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The event and announcement is also an opportunity to highlight the Administration’s ongoing commitment to HBCUs.
Details on the Announcement
As highlighted by the President earlier in the week, the rapid growth of cybercrime is creating a growing need for cybersecurity professionals across a range of industries, from financial services, health care, and retail to the US government itself. By some estimates, the demand for cybersecurity workers is growing 12 times faster than the U.S. job market, and is creating well-paying jobs.
To meet this growing need, the Department of Energy is establishing the Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium with funding from the Minority Serving Institutions Partnerships Program housed in its National Nuclear Security Administration. The Minority Service Institutions Program focuses on building a strong pipeline of talent from minority-serving institutions to DOE labs, with a mix of research collaborations, involvement of DOE scientists in mentoring, teaching and curriculum development, and direct recruitment of students.
With $25M in overall funding over five years, and with the first grants this year, the Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium will bring together 13 HBCUs, two DOE labs, and the Charleston County School District with the goal of creating a sustainable pipeline of students focused on cybersecurity issues. The consortium has a number of core attributes:
It is designed as a system. This allows students that enter through any of the partner schools to have all consortia options available to them, to create career paths and degree options through collaboration between all the partners (labs and schools), and to open the doors to DOE sites and facilities.
It has a range of participating higher education institutions. With Norfolk State University as a the lead, the consortium includes a K-12 school district, a two-year technical college, as well as four-year public and private universities that offer graduate degrees.
Built to change to evolving employer needs: To be successful in the long term, this program is designed to be sufficiently flexible in its organization to reflect the unique regional priorities that Universities have in faculty research and developing STEM disciplines and skills, and DOE site targets for research and critical skill development.
Diversifying the pipeline by working with leading minority-serving institutions: As the President stated in Executive Order 13532, “Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities” in February 2010, America’s HBCUs, for over 150 years, have produced many of the Nation’s leaders in science, business, government, academia, and the military, and have provided generations of American men and women with hope and educational opportunity.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY'S STATEMENT ON NORTHERN IRELAND AGREEMENT
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Success of Northern Ireland Talks
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 23, 2014
The United States warmly welcomes that announcement today of an agreement among Northern Ireland's political parties, facilitated by the U.K. and Irish governments.
This is statesmanship, pure and simple, and leadership by all parties to break a political impasse and avoid a fiscal crisis by resolving complex budgetary and welfare issues. The agreement reforms institutional arrangements, which will improve governance in Northern Ireland, and advances Northern Ireland’s peace process by establishing new institutions to deal with the often divisive legacy of the past – including a Historical Investigations Unit, an Independent Commission for Information Retrieval, an Implementation and Reconciliation Group, and an Oral History Archive. The agreement on legacy issues is based largely on negotiations led last year by former Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Richard Haass.
I commend the parties for working together through some very contentious issues – and finding solutions that will promote a more peaceful and hopeful future for the people of Northern Ireland. The agreement will now go through party structures for endorsement.
The U.K. Government also played a critical role in the talks’ success by agreeing to provide financial support, including new funding to implement the arrangements for dealing with legacy issues and to promote shared and integrated education.
I applaud the parties and the two governments for securing this agreement and pledge America’s full political support for the new arrangements. I'm also particularly grateful to my Personal Representative, Senator Gary Hart, and his Deputy Greg Burton, whose deep engagement helped ensure the success of the talks. I know Senator Hart looks forward to continuing his efforts next year in support of a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland, and I am very lucky to have Gary devoting his time to this effort.
Success of Northern Ireland Talks
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
December 23, 2014
The United States warmly welcomes that announcement today of an agreement among Northern Ireland's political parties, facilitated by the U.K. and Irish governments.
This is statesmanship, pure and simple, and leadership by all parties to break a political impasse and avoid a fiscal crisis by resolving complex budgetary and welfare issues. The agreement reforms institutional arrangements, which will improve governance in Northern Ireland, and advances Northern Ireland’s peace process by establishing new institutions to deal with the often divisive legacy of the past – including a Historical Investigations Unit, an Independent Commission for Information Retrieval, an Implementation and Reconciliation Group, and an Oral History Archive. The agreement on legacy issues is based largely on negotiations led last year by former Special Envoy for Northern Ireland Richard Haass.
I commend the parties for working together through some very contentious issues – and finding solutions that will promote a more peaceful and hopeful future for the people of Northern Ireland. The agreement will now go through party structures for endorsement.
The U.K. Government also played a critical role in the talks’ success by agreeing to provide financial support, including new funding to implement the arrangements for dealing with legacy issues and to promote shared and integrated education.
I applaud the parties and the two governments for securing this agreement and pledge America’s full political support for the new arrangements. I'm also particularly grateful to my Personal Representative, Senator Gary Hart, and his Deputy Greg Burton, whose deep engagement helped ensure the success of the talks. I know Senator Hart looks forward to continuing his efforts next year in support of a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland, and I am very lucky to have Gary devoting his time to this effort.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Monday, November 10, 2014
AG HOLDER ANNOUNCES DOJ DESIGNEE CO-CHAIR OF PRESIDENT'S TASK FORCE ON PUERTO RICO
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Friday, November 7, 2014
Attorney General Holder Announces Stuart Delery Will Serve as the Department of Justice Designee as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico
Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Stuart Delery, the Acting Associate Attorney General, will serve as the Department of Justice’s designee as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico.
“Stuart Delery is an exceptional public servant who will continue the work of his predecessors, Tom Perrelli and Tony West, as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico,” said Attorney General Holder. “Stuart demonstrated his commitment to strengthen our nation’s security and to protect public health and safety in his prior role as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. Stuart will serve the Task Force – and the people of Puerto Rico – well.”
“The ongoing work of the Task Force reflects the Administration’s – and the Department of Justice’s – commitment to the people of Puerto Rico,” said Associate Attorney General Delery. “I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the Task Force, and look forward to working with my federal colleagues and Commonwealth officials in Puerto Rico and Washington.”
The President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico, which is co-chaired by the Attorney General’s designee and the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, was created by President Bill Clinton to examine Puerto Rico’s political status and to identify a process by which the people of Puerto Rico could express their views on the subject. The Task Force continued to address these issues through the Administration of President George Bush. President Barack Obama expanded the Task Force’s scope and directed it to recommend policies to promote job creation, education, health care, clean energy, and economic development on the island. The Task Force published its report and recommendations to the President and Congress in March of 2011, and its efforts to implement the recommendations continue today.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Attorney General Holder Announces Stuart Delery Will Serve as the Department of Justice Designee as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico
Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Stuart Delery, the Acting Associate Attorney General, will serve as the Department of Justice’s designee as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico.
“Stuart Delery is an exceptional public servant who will continue the work of his predecessors, Tom Perrelli and Tony West, as Co-Chair of the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico,” said Attorney General Holder. “Stuart demonstrated his commitment to strengthen our nation’s security and to protect public health and safety in his prior role as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. Stuart will serve the Task Force – and the people of Puerto Rico – well.”
“The ongoing work of the Task Force reflects the Administration’s – and the Department of Justice’s – commitment to the people of Puerto Rico,” said Associate Attorney General Delery. “I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the Task Force, and look forward to working with my federal colleagues and Commonwealth officials in Puerto Rico and Washington.”
The President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico, which is co-chaired by the Attorney General’s designee and the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, was created by President Bill Clinton to examine Puerto Rico’s political status and to identify a process by which the people of Puerto Rico could express their views on the subject. The Task Force continued to address these issues through the Administration of President George Bush. President Barack Obama expanded the Task Force’s scope and directed it to recommend policies to promote job creation, education, health care, clean energy, and economic development on the island. The Task Force published its report and recommendations to the President and Congress in March of 2011, and its efforts to implement the recommendations continue today.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
FTC SAYS IT IS AGGRESSIVELY COMBATING TELEPHONE SCAMS TARGETING SENIORS
FROM: U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
FTC Testifies on Efforts to Stop Phone Scams Before Senate Special Committee on Aging
Testifying on behalf of the Commission before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Lois Greisman, Associate Director of the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices, said the FTC has brought more than 130 cases involving telemarketing fraud against more than 800 defendants during the past decade. The Commission has obtained judgments of more than $2 billion from the cases that have been resolved. Despite aggressive enforcement, the prevalence of phone scams remains unacceptably high – the testimony noted that the FTC receives tens of thousands of complaints about illegal phone calls every week, including imposter scams like the “grandparent scam.”
The testimony described the FTC’s interagency work, noting that since 2003, hundreds of fraudulent telemarketers have faced criminal charges and prison time as a result of FTC referrals to criminal law enforcement agencies. A U.S.-Canada operation, Project COLT, has led to 10 recent indictments of grandparent scammers, and information provided by the FTC has helped extradite and prosecute phone fraudsters. With the FTC’s assistance, Project COLT has recovered more than $26 million for victims of telemarketing fraud. In addition, the FTC has supported multiple prosecutions through a U.S.-Jamaica law enforcement task force, Project JOLT, including phone scams that targeted seniors and impersonated government agencies to promote fake lottery schemes.
The testimony outlined FTC education and outreach programs that reach tens of millions of people every year. Among them is the recently created “Pass It On” program that provides seniors with information, in English and Spanish, on a variety of scams targeting the elderly. The testimony also noted the agency’s work with the Elder Justice Coordinating Council to help protect seniors, and with the AARP Foundation, whose peer counselors provided fraud-avoidance advice last year to more than a thousand seniors who had filed complaints with the FTC about certain frauds, including lottery, prize promotion, and grandparent scams.
The testimony also described the FTC’s ongoing work to bring about technological changes that will make it more difficult for fraudsters to use the phone to scam consumers and to hide from law enforcement. Among these initiatives are an effort to make it harder for scammers to fake or “spoof” their caller ID information and the more widespread availability of technology that will block calls from fraudsters, essentially operating as a spam filter for the phone.
The Commission vote approving the testimony and its inclusion in the formal record was 5-0.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
PRESIDENT OBAMA, PRESIDENT BACHELET OF CHILE MAKE REMARKS BEFORE MEETING
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
Remarks by President Obama and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile Before Bilateral Meeting
Oval Office
11:05 A.M. EDT
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I want to welcome back to the Oval Office President Bachelet. She is my second favorite Michelle. (Laughter.) And I’m very much pleased to see her again. We had the opportunity to work together when I first came into office. Since that time, President Bachelet has been extraordinarily busy doing excellent work at the United Nations, particularly around women -- an issue that the United States has been very supportive of. And we’re very proud of the work that she did there.
She’s now back in office, and it gives us an opportunity to just strengthen further the outstanding relationship between the United States and Chile.
Let me say, first of all, congratulations to the Chilean National Football Team for an outstanding showing at the World Cup. I know it was a tough loss, but it also showed the incredible skill and talent of the Chilean team. This is as well, I think, as it’s ever done against a very tough Brazilian team on their home turf. And so congratulations to them. We play -- coming up, we’ve got a tough match as well. So I want to wish the U.S. team a lot of luck in the game to come.
The basis for Chile’s and the United States’ strong bilateral relationship includes the fact that we have a free trade agreement that has greatly expanded commerce in both countries and has created jobs in both countries.
We have excellent cooperation when it comes to a wide range of issues -- energy, education, people-to-people relations. Chile has been a model of democracy in Latin America. It’s been able to consistently transition from center-left governments to center-right governments, but always respectful of democratic traditions. Obviously, those traditions were hard-won, and President Bachelet knows as well as anybody how difficult it was to bring about democracy. And now, the fact that Chile across the political spectrum respects and fights for the democratic process makes it a great model for the entire hemisphere.
Today, we’re going to have an opportunity to discuss how we can deepen those relationships even further. I know that education, for example, is an issue that is at the top of President Bachelet’s agenda. It’s something that’s at the top of my agenda here in the United States. For us to be able to strengthen student exchanges and compare mechanisms and ideas for how we can build skills of young people in both countries is something that we’ll spend some time on.
We’re both very interested in energy and how we can transition to a clean energy economy. And we’ll be announcing some collaborations, including the facilitation of a construction of a major solar plant inside of Chile that can help meet their energy needs.
We’ll talk about regional issues. Obviously, we’ve seen great progress in democratization throughout the region, in part because of Chile’s leadership, but there are obviously still some hotspots that we have to try to address, as well as issues of security in areas like Central America and the Caribbean. And I’ll be very interested in hearing President Bachelet’s views.
And we’ll discuss international issues. Chile, with its seat on the United Nations Security Council, can serve as a leader on a wide range of issues, from peacekeeping to conflict resolution, to important issues like climate change. And we have great confidence that in that role Chile will continue to be a positive force for good around the world.
So I just want to say thank you for not only the friendship with President Bachelet, but more broadly, our friendship with the Chilean people. And President Bachelet’s predecessor, he and I had an excellent relationship; she and I have had an excellent relationship. I think that indicates that it really goes beyond any particular party. I’m confident that my replacement after I’m gone will have an excellent relationship, because it’s based on common values and a strong respect in both countries for the value of the U.S.-Chilean relationship.
So, welcome, and I look forward to an excellent conversation.
PRESIDENT BACHELET: Thank you, President Obama. I want to, first of all, thank you for the invitation to visit you and your country. And, of course, we are looking forward to enhance our cooperation in many different areas.
As you just mentioned, Chile and the U.S. have had a very strong and mature relation for so many years, and we want to make it deeper and to enhance them in different areas. Of course, this will be a great opportunity, as you said, to discuss some of the regional and international issues, given the fact that we’re also sitting at the Security Council. But also, we will be able to in the bilateral dimension be able to increase our cooperation in areas that are very sensible, and for the U.S. and for Chile, such as you mentioned, education, energy, science and technology, people-to-people relation.
We already have, as you know, a very good -- I mean, not only the bilateral way, we also have a very good Chile-California and Chile-Massachusetts programs. We have been working very strongly and we will continue on that path.
And we are really interested -- this year, I think we are commemorating 10 years of the free trade agreement from the U.S. and Chile. And the U.S. is our, I would say, our most important foreign investor. We want to continue that path, and of course, we will have also the possibility of having activities with the Chamber of Commerce and others because we really want to make our relations in all dimensions -- political, economical, social, et cetera -- stronger and stronger every day.
So I’m very happy to be here with you again, and I’m sure this will be a great meeting.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you.
END
11:12 A.M. EDT
11:12 A.M. EDT
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
DEPUTY AG COLE'S REMARKS ON THE INCREASING NUMBER OF HEROIN DEATHS
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole Delivers Remarks at the “Pills to Needles: the Pathway to Rising Heroin Deaths” Event
~ Tuesday, June 10, 2014
While I am pleased to be here, the issue that brings us together, prescription drug and heroin abuse, is not a happy one. Unfortunately, the need to address these problems has become critical. But the way we begin to deal with it is to come together as a community to better understand the symptoms and the underlying causes of the problem. With the community, family, and friends, aware and engaged, we get that much closer to practical and sustainable solutions.
As the Attorney General recently observed, heroin and opiate addiction and abuse “is impacting the lives of Americans in every state, in every region, and from every background and walk of life.”
You have experienced this crisis, firsthand, here in the Birmingham region, where you have witnessed a more than five-fold increase in heroin overdose deaths between 2008 to 2012. That rate is nothing short of tragic, and cannot be tolerated in our neighborhoods and it cannot be tolerated anywhere in our nation.
Communities like yours across the country are grappling to find solutions. In Cleveland, Ohio, the community came together last fall for a daylong summit, much like this one, hosted by the Cleveland Clinic, the United States Attorney’s Office, and other state and local health care and law enforcement leaders after witnessing a 400% increase in heroin-related deaths.
They generated a plan to address every aspect of the problem, including education and prevention, health care policy, law enforcement and treatment. As part of that plan, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office produced a website “letsfaceheroin.com” that looks to increase awareness and understanding of the problem, and offers support and resources to those in need in the community, including young people, parents, community leaders, and current users.
In Vermont, the family of a heroin overdose victim joined with the United States Attorney’s Office to create an award-winning documentary, “The Opiate Effect,” to educate people about the realities and dangers of opiate abuse.
Clearly, part of the solution is prosecution. Here in the federal court in Birmingham, a 20-year sentence was handed down last month to Harold Mims for selling heroin that resulted in an overdose death. There is also the ongoing prosecution of Patropius Foster, who is charged with distributing heroin that resulted in the death of local University of Alabama student Baker Mims.
We just heard from Baker’s parents, Ronnie and Beverly, and Tracy Bynum, whose daughter Madison also died of an overdose. I want to offer you and your families my sympathy and my support, as well as my gratitude and respect. You exhibit such strength and courage to come here today and speak personally about the tragedies you have faced. I know how hard it must be for you to do this, but I also know that you do this so that others might be spared your pain.
While we can prosecute cases such as these two in Alabama – and the hundreds just like them around the country -- I want to make it clear that what we face is not just a crime problem, it is also a nationwide public health problem and a community problem. And everywhere people look at this problem they come to the same three conclusions: 1. there is no single answer; 2. we cannot stand by and do nothing; and 3. we cannot arrest and prosecute our way out of it.
This issue demands that we all join together to employ a comprehensive strategy that addresses every aspect, every phase, every cause of this crisis.
The heroin use and overdose epidemic gripping this country has its roots in more than a decade of prescription drug abuse. As the Attorney General recently remarked, the “increase in heroin abuse is a sad but not unpredictable symptom of the significant increase in prescription drug abuse over the past decade.”
Abuse of prescription drugs leads to dependency and that dependency leads to demand for more prescription drugs. That demand, users find, ultimately cannot be satisfied by the harder-to-obtain and more expensive prescription pills. That is where the heroin problems sneak in. The ready availability and lower cost of heroin makes it an easy and cheap alternative with tragic consequences.
Now don't kid yourselves into thinking that the pills-to-heroin epidemic won’t come to your neighborhood, your family members, your churches. This problem does not begin on the street or in prison; more often than not, it begins at home. Even, in the homes of those closest to us. More than half of all prescription drug abusers first obtained pills from friends or family, often by raiding the family medicine cabinet. And no one should think that the size of their wallet or the size of their house or the extent of their education will protect them against the threat of heroin in their communities.
The demographic of prescription drug abusers has broadened and is hitting all geographic and socio-economic populations. As a result, the growth of this problem is staggering. Let me give you some examples: among women, between 1999 and 2010, there was a 400% increase in the abuse of prescription painkillers.
Among people 25 to 64 years of age, drug overdoses cause more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. Every day, 105 people die as a result of drug overdoses, and nearly 7,000 more are treated in emergency rooms.
In 2012, approximately 6.8 million people reported abusing prescription drugs in the prior month. As a country and as a community, we cannot sustain this path.
Then, there is the issue of where the prescription drug abuse all too often leads. The heroin use and overdose epidemic follows swiftly in the footsteps of the prescription drug abuse problem. In a survey between 2008 and 2010, 81% of first-time heroin users had previously abused prescription painkillers.
The number of heroin users has seen a dramatic increase in the past several years. In 2012, the number of heroin users had doubled from 2007. More than 156,000 people reported using heroin for the first time during 2012. Perhaps most troubling, the age of first-time heroin use is decreasing. Predictably, and tragically, the increased heroin use has led to an increase in the number of heroin overdose deaths.
DEA has reported a disturbing, but unfortunately logical, trend in the heroin marketplace. Mexican drug cartels have significantly expanded their production of heroin and distribution within the United States. And, heroin traffickers are moving into areas with existing prescription drug abuse problems. Like any business, they are finding the demand and meeting it.
Prescription drug abusers who have recently switched to heroin are the most vulnerable potential victims. They are typically inexperienced users, more often younger than the average drug user. They have a lower tolerance for the dangerous effects of heroin and are unfamiliar with drug purity and strength. These problems are exacerbated as the heroin available in our communities has increased in purity and has in many cases been mixed with other drugs or substances, such as fentanyl, that not only dramatically increase the effects of heroin, but also increase the risk of overdose.
So why is the United States Department of Justice involved? Why did I fly in from Washington to talk to you about this? Because we need to sound the alarm. Today, our children and grandchildren, our friends and neighbors, are abusing prescription drugs. But far too often, and unless we act, tomorrow they will be heroin overdose victims.
I am here to elevate this issue to the national platform. We are seeing, across the country, that a comprehensive public health strategy to address the heroin and prescription drug abuse and overdose crisis must include education, prevention, enforcement, and treatment. To be successful, we must enlist the combined efforts of doctors and health care providers, educators, community leaders, law enforcement officials, faith-based groups, state and local public health officials, and the friends and family of drug abusers.
Here in Birmingham, the United States Attorney’s Office has worked with federal, state, and local law enforcement to attack the supply side of the heroin problem, prosecuting more than 50 people in a collaborative and focused effort to target dealers and their sources of supply.
Nationwide, since 2011, DEA has opened more than 4,500 heroin-related investigations. As both a sign of the increasing problem and the efforts to combat the supply of heroin in the United States, the amount of heroin seized along the southwest border increased more than 320% between 2008 and 2013.
But I don’t want anyone to think that what we are talking about is simply a problem of drugs crossing our borders, or another country’s bad actors harming us. This is an American problem, through and through. Make no mistake, the practitioners who illegally dispense prescriptions, those who operate pill mills for prescription painkillers and the pharmacists who fill those prescriptions knowing their true purpose, are drug dealers no different from street-level heroin dealers.
They may look different than the Hollywood image of a drug dealer. They may even be our friends and our neighbors. But they contribute to the problem just as much as the person selling $10 bags of powder. Which is why, in addressing these issues, we must confront the problems of prescription drug diversion if we ever hope to reduce the number of future heroin users.
We confront this problem initially with education and supply reduction. The Department of Justice, through the DEA, educates doctors, pharmacists, and other health practitioners in the identification and prevention of prescription drug diversion. DEA’s Office of Diversion Control has conducted dozens of Pharmacy Diversion Awareness Conferences and one is coming to Alabama next year.
DEA also has worked to address the problem of prescription drug availability in the home. DEA periodically conducts Nationwide Prescription Drug Takeback Days. More than 780,000 pounds of prescription drugs were destroyed this year, and over 4.1 million pounds of prescription drugs have been destroyed since 2010. Every prescription painkiller like this taken out of a medicine cabinet is one less pill that can end up in the hands of a young, first-time drug user.
DEA also uses Tactical Diversion Squads for enforcement, and there is one in Birmingham. Their primary purpose is to investigate, disrupt and dismantle diversion schemes, pill mills, rogue clinics and pharmacies, doctor shoppers, and prescription forgery rings.
But we realize that even with these enforcement efforts, drug abuse and overdoses will continue to occur. That is where you – the parents, friends, educators, and medical professionals – come in. You must be educated on the early warning signs and the key indicators of abuse and you must realize that the most caring thing you can do is intervene. Early detection and intervention has been demonstrated to be one of the most effective ways to reduce long-term substance abuse.
We can also help by taking greater advantage of proven methods of treating overdoses and saving lives in emergency situations. The drug Naloxone can reverse the effects of heroin and opioid overdoses and has been proven to prevent overdose deaths. More than 10,000 overdoses have been reversed using naloxone since 2001.
In Quincy, Massachusetts, where they faced a similar heroin epidemic, after police began carrying naloxone, overdose deaths dropped by 70%. In New York, earlier this year, the state Senate and Assembly voted unanimously to allow wider distribution and use of naloxone.
But we also know that our work must include breaking the cycle of addiction and crime. By treating drug addiction as a disease instead of a crime, we provide better outcomes for the defendant and the community. That is why the Department of Justice is supporting more than 2,600 drug and specialty courts across the country that connect over 120,000 people convicted of drug-related offenses with the services and support they need to break the cycle of drug use and rejoin their communities.
By understanding the medical causes of drug addiction, making treatment available, and recognizing that alternatives to incarceration may be the appropriate answer for many drug users, we are being smart on crime and using all the tools we have to deal with these problems.
Unquestionably, these problems that bring us together today are daunting. They present us with a challenge whose scope and deadly consequences are like nothing we've seen before. But we have no choice, we have to deal with these issues head on. And not just with a single, one dimensional approach, but with every tool we've got, it's that important. And that means it's the responsibility of each and every one of us to do our part. Parents, brothers and sister, aunts, uncles, and grandparents need to step in when they see a family member going down the dangerous path of drug abuse. Teachers and coaches need to sit down with a student who's lost his or her way and counsel them. And all of us, young and old, need to overcome the discomfort of confronting a friend who we see is in trouble. Because without that loving confrontation, the trouble just gets worse and can end up with our losing that friend.
As much as I'd like to, I cannot stop this problem today or tomorrow. But I can commit to you that we at the Department of Justice are dedicated to joining with you in the search for comprehensive solutions. And I truly believe, that with sustained and committed effort by all of us, we will find those solutions; we will stop this crisis; and we will emerge a safer, stronger and healthier community and nation. Thank you.
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