It was a wonderful week in the office after a wonderful week of not being in the office.

Last week was vacation in Nova Scotia - camping, kayaking, swimming, etc. From the tops of the cliffs on Cape Breton you can look down onto the ocean and see the pilot whales feeding offshre. Many bald eagles. Deer and moose. The weather was perfect - just two nights of rain - so that may have biased our view of the province.

The news this week is that Thomson Scientific has agreed to be an instutional member and a sponsor of the upcoming workshop in Morocco. Some of their sponsorship funds will be used to bring additional experts from neighboring countries so that we can have a more comprehensive discussion of regional issues relating to digital libraries and access to electronic information.

The other news is that Booz Allen Hamilton has agreed to be a sponsor of our fall internship program. We had three interns this summer - from Belgium, Peru & the US. The Booz Allen contribution will fund one or two interns, and if we can match it with a second donation, then the internship program will really take off. It is an internet-based program - the interns do not need to be based at our office in Maine - and the funds may even help young Fulbrighters as they transition back to their home country.

The monthly newsletter went out this week, and it included our offer to give free memberships to Fulbrighters from the Middle East and North Africa. The response has been quite good, and we now have around 80 countries represented in the Academy through the country of their residence (35+ countries) or the country of their Fulbright experience (65+ countries). (The numbers don't add up to 80 because some countries appear on both lists). My goal is to have over 100 countires represented by the end of this year.

The other good news of the week is that the US State Department has posted an updated list of Fulbright alumni organizations, and the Fulbright Academy is included on the list. The State Department is involved because they oversee and partially fund the Fulbright program. The list can be downloaded from the Alumni.State.Gov website.