Letter from the President

We naturally acquaint ourselves with what we consider to be ours. We know our lovers, friends and family; we know our homes, our neighborhoods, our towns. But when it comes to our world, the scale is just too vast for us to grasp. It is far easier to boil it down to one-dimensional cultural stereotypes and international news briefs.

And yet, as our schools, our government and our children are coming to understand, a true global education must encompass so much more. Of course, there is no better way to understand another culture than to study, work or volunteer abroad. Yet as much as we must encourage this practice, and as rapidly as the numbers of students studying abroad rise each year, there will always be millions upon millions who never have such an opportunity.

We believe that it is in the interests of our country and our world to ensure that everyone, young and old alike, can learn through the experiences of their peers and children who are living abroad. After all, what better way is there to improve international relations and encourage world peace than to foster new generations of global citizens who are constantly seeking to better understand the world they live in?

I began the Glimpse Foundation with this question in mind and the answer was clear: none. From that point forward, Glimpse has committed itself to building the resources and tools that these generations will need to acquaint themselves with their world and share their cultural insights with an ever-expanding international community.

We now work with tens of thousands of students and nearly a thousand schools from across the country to recruit articles about personal cultural experiences abroad. By compiling and sharing these experiences and developing an international online community, we help educators maximize their students' abroad experience and help students and other youth get the most out of their time overseas. These youth, in turn, offer avenues toward deeper cross-cultural understanding for their peers back home.

Welcome to the Glimpse Foundation. It's your world, now it's time to get acquainted!


Sincerely,

Nicholas Fitzhugh
President & Publisher
The Glimpse Foundation

Mission & Philosophy

As an economic and military superpower, the United States exerts more power internationally than any other nation; however, the American public's understanding of the rest of the world–its peoples, its cultures and its social and political challenges–is severely limited. The Glimpse Foundation is designed to reconcile this disparity.

Glimpse believes that if we seek to understand the daily realities of life around the world, we are more likely to identify ourselves as world citizens with a responsibility to global stewardship. Through positive, personal and peaceful cross-cultural communication, we can work toward developing a global community built upon mutual respect and understanding.

History

Inaugurated online in spring 2001 as The Global Pulse, Glimpse originally featured five creative nonfiction pieces, written by friends and fellow Brown students who were studying abroad. Over the next years, a team of seven dedicated student volunteers, including current Editor in Chief Kerala Goodkin, worked to expand The Global Pulse, attracting new contributors by making contacts with study abroad offices and international volunteer programs across the country.

In fall 2001, The Global Pulse Corporation was re-incorporated as The Glimpse Foundation and received tax-exempt status the following spring. Before graduation in spring 2002, Glimpse's founding team launched the premiere print issue of Glimpse and organized its first conference: Behind the News: New Perspectives in International Journalism. A generous planning grant from The National Geographic Society enabled the transition from student project to full-time operation. Nick and Kerala became full-time employees in June 2002 and have since worked tirelessly to make their first kitchen table conversation a reality.

Programs

glimpse.org is an online community of young adults with a shared interest in traveling and living overseas. It features a comprehensive database of cultural narratives from around the world, searchable by region or theme. Registered users may also connect with other students and volunteers abroad, read and write travel blogs, search for international program providers, find historical and cultural resources to help them prepare for a trip abroad and purchase travel-related goods.

Glimpse Quarterly is an international news, travel and culture magazine that features compelling narratives written by youth living abroad, on themes ranging from quarry divers in France to taxicabs in Kyrgyzstan to genocide in Central Africa. With depth, breadth and intimacy, we tackle the international issues that no one talks about and delve into the daily cultural realities that no one sees.

Staff

Kerala Goodkin
Editor in Chief
kerala@glimpse.org

Kerala holds a BA from Brown University in Hispanic Studies. She has served as a Head Writing Fellow in the Brown Writing Fellows Program, an editor of the Brown Academic Review, a regular columnist for the Brown Daily Herald and a contributing writer to Around and About Providence. Kerala has traveled extensively and also lived in Bolivia for six months, where she worked as a reporter for The Bolivian Times. In addition to her work with Glimpse, Kerala currently serves as a contributing editor to National Geographic Traveler On Campus and as Translator and PR Coordinator for the Committee of Immigrants in Action. She recently won first place in the Elixir Inaugural Fiction Contest (2004) for her first novel, How Things Break, available on Amazon. She has also served as a travel correspondent for Gather.com.

Adam DiClemente
Director of Marketing and Sales
adam@glimpse.org

Adam is a graduate of the School of International Service at American University in Washington, DC where he studied International Communication. He has enjoyed several study abroad experiences in France and is an active, competent speaker of the language. Before joining Glimpse, Adam worked at the U.S. Civilian Research & Development foundation, an organization that helps businesses from the former Soviet Union overcome the cross-cultural barriers to success in the United States. In 2004, Adam was a U.S. delegate to the World Bank’s "Youth, Peace & Development Conference," designed to build a lasting network among young internationalists from around the globe. Adam enjoys biking trails, audiography and ideography, playing with art and found objects, and making people laugh.

Board of Trustees

John Fitzhugh
Treasurer

John "Josh" Fitzhugh is Vice President and General Counsel of Union Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Montpelier, Vermont. A cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College (1970) and Brooklyn Law School (1977), Josh practiced law in Vermont for 20 years before joining Union Mutual. Josh has served as the Founding Editor of the Connecticut Valley Reporter, Business Reporter and co-founder and Editor in Chief of The National Law Journal. From 1991 to 1993 he served as Legal Counsel to the Governor of Vermont.

Charles Terry
Chair Emeritus

Charles Terry is the former President and CEO of Comtex News Network, Inc., the leading business-to-business infomediary, aggregating and redistributing nearly 20,000 stories a day from over 10,000 diverse, global sources. Charlie has also served 14 years with CompuServe, working in software development, product marketing and direct sales. Prior to his work with CompuServe, Charlie was President of Corporate Cost Management in Rockville, Maryland, which markets cost-containment and decision-support software for the healthcare industry.

Robert Whitcomb

Robert Whitcomb is Vice President and Commentary Editor of The Providence Journal. He has also served as a reporter and feature writer for the Boston Herald Traveler, a news editor for the Wall Street Journal, Financial Editor for the International Herald Tribune, Managing Editor for the Brown University World Business Advisory, Editor of Health Care Horizon and Consulting Editor for Manisses Communications. Bob has been the co-host of the Truman Taylor Show since 1994.

Anne Holland

A 19-year publishing industry veteran, Holland currently leads the online publishing company MarketingSherpa, which serves business case studies to 173,000 weekly readers. Previously Holland served as Online Publishing Consultant to The Economist, and held marketing positions for Phillips Business Information, Jane's Publishing, The Oil Daily, and Defense & Foreign Affairs. Holland is a graduate of Connecticut College and attended the College of Ripon & York, St John's in Yorkshire UK during her junior year abroad. Her immediate family includes natives of Serbia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Nicaragua.

Jonathan Clarke

Jonathan Clarke is a writer, lecturer and consultant on international issues. He is a scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. Mr. Clarke is a former career diplomat in the British Diplomatic Service with assignments in Germany, Zimbabwe and the United States. His particular areas of expertise are political, security, economic and development issues relating to Europe, the United States, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and East Asia. Jonathan's latest book (co-authored with Stefan Halper) is America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press, June 2004). Since 2001 he has been the Washington representative for Hakluyt and Company.

International Education Advisory Board

• Anthony Ogden, Penn State University
  
• Chris Deegan, University of Illinois at Chicago
  
• Matthew Pucciarelli, New York University
  
• Norman Peterson, Montana State University
  
• Rebecca Hovey, School for International Training

Advisory Board

• Tracy Breton, Journalist
  
• Didi Brush, Major Gifts Officer
  
• Rick Emanuel, Print Production Consultant
  
• John Eng-Wong, Former International Students Director
  
• Barrett Hazeltine, Engineering Professor
  
• Josef Mittlemann, Engineering Professor
  
• Stephen Siegel, Venture Capitalist
  
• Patricia Symonds, Anthropologist
  
• Elizabeth Taylor, Journalist
  
• Meera Viswanathan, Japanese Studies Professor