The Stanley Foundation is a private operating foundation working toward a secure peace with freedom and justice. It creates opportunities to improve international understanding through forums, media, and educational programs. The foundation has long been a supporter of global education efforts and has worked since 1994 to promote global education in America's community colleges. Today the Stanley Foundation continues to encourage American community colleges' focus on international and intercultural education. This conference was considered the first step in a broad-based process to develop a comprehensive guide to resources for global initiatives in community colleges and to assist federal agencies in advancing their global education objectives.
Planning is under way for similar events in other states from coast to coast.
The foundation has also convened workshops in the states of Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia, and California, where participating institutions sent their president and a trustee to learn about globalizing the community college and to develop a one-year action plan for their own institution. The Stanley Foundation planned and cosponsored an international gathering in Bilston, England, in 1998. Representatives from Africa, newly independent states of Western Europe, Canada, England, and the United States attended this meeting. The objective was to examine and fashion international mechanisms to develop communications and cooperation among these countries in advancing global education in higher education. Two summit meetings were conducted at the Stanley Foundation headquarters in Iowa during 1998 and 2000.