From his undergraduate days at the University of Delaware, Mark A. Ashwill, AS '81, has had a passion for all things international. A political science major, he lived in the Deutsches Haus (German House); studied abroad in Germany for one year; completed an internship at Pacem in Terris, a peace-education organization in Wilmington; and wrote articles for the student operated newspaper, The Review, on a range of international issues.

He has carried that sense of global concern into his professional career. Ashwill, director of the World Languages Institute and Fulbright Program adviser at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo founded a nonprofit, educational foundation last year to help students from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The U.S.-Indochina Educational Foundation Inc. (USIEF) is intended to contribute to the development of those countries by offering promising students the opportunity to pursue advanced education and training in the U.S., according to its mission statement. The organization has an important secondary mission as well, to educate Americans about the conditions in that formerly war-torn part of Southeast Asia and strengthen ties between the region and the United States.

Ashwill, who first became aware of the need for better educational opportunities there while setting up a study-abroad program in Vietnam, says USIEF fills a void left by other scholarship programs.

"While attending a 1999 conference in Phnom Penh on development issues in Indochina, I participated in a higher education working group," Ashwill says. "The discussion revolved almost entirely around grants and scholarships for overseas study; it became abundantly clear to me how little assistance was actually available for study in the U.S."

USIEF also is unique in that it aims to help foreign students become prepared for the rigors of earning a degree at an English-speaking university. Toward that end, the program focuses on arranging remedial tutoring, so that participants can pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), a prerequisite for university admission, and score well enough on graduate school entrance exams to land a spot in a U.S. graduate school program.

"We're looking for people who are bright, ambitious, hard-working and adaptable," says Ashwill, who also holds a master's degree in German from the University of Maryland-College Park and a Ph.D. in comparative and higher education from SUNY at Buffalo.

"They have to demonstrate an interest in the U.S., and their English must be fairly good. We screen them for language skills, ask for references and attempt to determine financial need. We want people who will return home to put their education to good use for the benefit of themselves, their families and their countries."

The challenge of establishing such a scholarship program has been exacerbated by the at-times shaky diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cambodia and Vietnam. The program's first student, Sokna Heng, a Cambodian woman who came to the U.S. in August 1999, initially could not get a student (F-1) visa in Cambodia because the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh did not issue non-immigrant visas at the time. She was then turned down at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok and at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, before finally being able to convince an embassy officer that she had a legitimate reason to be granted the visa.

"Sokna is very strong-willed; she simply refused to take 'no' for an answer," Ashwill says.

Since her arrival at the Buffalo campus last fall, Heng has mastered English well enough to score a 550 on the TOEFL, the required score for admission to most graduate programs. She is now preparing for the GMAT, is working on-campus and completed an upper-division course in human resources management this summer. Her goal, according to Ashwill, is to enter a graduate program in international trade or business at SUNY-Buffalo or another university. In the past year, she also fulfilled a USIEF service requirement by visiting local schools and giving an on-campus talk about the Khmer (Cambodian) language.

"As a condition of support, USIEF grantees are asked to visit schools and community organizations or to participate in related campus events," Ashwill explains.

The fledgling foundation is sponsoring its second Cambodian student this fall, San Kim. A graduate of the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Kim is enrolled in an intensive English program in preparation for admission to an international business program in 2001.

Ashwill says he hopes to increase the number of sponsored students as he solicits funding from foundations, heritage communities, American companies with Southeast Asian interests and individuals.

"As we raise more money and forge partnerships with other universities and colleges around the country, we will be able to recruit and place more students," he says.

While the work of setting up the foundation is both labor- and capital-intensive, Ashwill says it's one small--and rewarding--way to make a difference in a war-torn region of the world.

"I believe that we have a practical and moral obligation to support the aspirations of some of their most promising and deserving young people for quality higher education and a better life. It is also an issue of self-interest for the U.S. There is an obvious link between education/training and political/economic stability. Many USIEF alumni are destined to become leaders in the public and private sectors of their countries," Ashwill says.