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Tara Boyce-Hofmann of AFS-USA

• Jeff Borman and Matt Brown

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Travel inspires us to imagine and the American Field Service is a special catalyst. President Tara Boyce-Hofmann shares with No Show the spark that AFS-USA unleashes through the unlimited power of young minds to dream. To become global citizens. To question the ethics of borders and practice diplomatic dialog.

https://www.afsusa.org/
https://www.instagram.com/afs_usa

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

it's not a one-time experience. It's about opening your mind and your whole life journey is about curiosity and wanting to learn about other people.

Jeff Borman:

In that line. In 1992, 93, I was an American field service student, sent from Cincinnati Ohio to Nice, france, and you talk about creating the appetite to see the world and laying that foundation. It was a seismic moment in my life for which my life was forever better. The AFS experience permanently opened my mind. It didn't just open minds, it decimated every barrier, to the detriment of my parents, because if they thought I questioned things beforehand, wait till you come back from an AFS experience.

Matt Brown:

Oh yeah, sometimes parents say this is not the kid I sent off you returned to be some other child, you know just smoking Galois cigarettes with a beret.

Jeff Borman:

That's exactly what my parents were hoping for. Barely didn't flunk out of high school French, got a degree in French literature, you know. A 20-year career journey in hospitality was entirely so that I could live and study abroad even more. It changed the way I saw every single thing, every day, every moment thereafter.

Matt Brown:

Hi everybody, it's no Show with Matt Brown and Jeff Borman. Tara Boyce-Hoffman has been an advocate no, the advocate for youth engaging in global travel to learn more about the world and more about themselves. Her life has been about the exchange of ideas at home and abroad, and so typically I do this big, long intro on all of our guests, but I want to hear today's bio directly from our special guest. Tara is president and chief executive officer of AFS USA, the organization that made such an impact on Jeff's life, and I want to welcome her to no Show, and I also want to ask her how on earth did you get into this crazy business?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Thank you for having me today. This is such a pleasure and that's the best introduction I think I've ever had in my career, so thank you. How did I get started? I went abroad in college. I did not have the opportunity to go on AFS in high school but I had a French teacher in high school who really inspired me and studied French and then went with Syracuse University abroad and that experience. I did live with a host family. I'm still in touch with my host sister and I have to say that's really the seed. It was different from AFS but I think that motivation to really want to see how we can bring young people together all started with my own personal experience.

Matt Brown:

AFS stands for American Field Service. Can you start things off by explaining the reasoning behind the AFS tagline?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

we develop active global citizens for American Field Service, who were made up of the young men who did not go to war in World War I and World War II but wanted to do something meaningful at that time and they volunteered to drive ambulances all across Europe, north Africa, south Asia, and the American Field Service was a very strong movement over the two wars and afterwards these young men got together after World War II and said what can our legacy be? You know, what is it that we can do to prevent war? And they concluded that by bringing young people together. That was really the best thing they could do. So in 1947, we started the high school program. There had been college university exchanges, boarding school started really in 47, 48.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

I just had the amazing pleasure of interviewing one of the last surviving participants from the then Czechoslovakia who came to the United States in 47, 48.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

The impact of having AFS in his life it's as if you were talking to a young student. Today was the same awakening. So the history of volunteerism is really what runs through the veins of AFS people around the globe. And we just finished celebrating our 75th anniversary of high school exchanges and as part of that 75th anniversary, the international organization really led us to question post-COVID, really, what are our goals? What are we really trying to achieve? And we really found a new, invigorated spirit with our new goal of developing active global citizens, and AFS defines an active global citizen as a person who's informed, compassionate and has an ethical compass that drives them to lead lives and make decisions that contribute to a more just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable world. So we have a tall glass of water here ahead of us in our goal. Afs would not be what it is today without the volunteers that we have In the United States. We have over 3,000 volunteers who give their time and their dedication to running this program.

Jeff Borman:

AFS recently announced a major victory. Can you share that with us?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Sure, sure. Well, you know, a large part of what we do in our programming in the United States is we have sponsored programs where we receive grants from the Department of State. But also AFS USA has its own designation from the Department of State to be a J-1 high school exchange program. Part of that comes with funding that comes out of the ECA of the Department of State and unfortunately, over the past couple of years there have been times where there are efforts to defund the budget and we just had to really pull out all the stops to combat what was four separate attempts to either reduce or eliminate funding of ECA, cultural exchange programs and an assortment of things like the Democracy Fund and money that goes towards USIAID.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

So really, as part of the Alliance for International Exchange I actually sit on the board of the Alliance we really led an effort to respond. And what did that mean? That meant calling out all of our stakeholders, having our volunteers write to congressmen working with in the alliance, you know, to get messages to the rules committee etc. Etc. And we were very pleased that none of those amendments passed. But unfortunately I think it's something we're going to have to stay on top of for quite a while never rest on our laurels. So a lot of the advocacy work we do is to ensure the greater society understands the benefits of international educational exchange, cultural exchange and the impact and the benefits that it brings to local communities in terms of cultural awareness, but also the economic benefits that exchange brings to the United States.

Jeff Borman:

You mentioned the J-1, and I'm hoping you can help me break down the complicated world of these student and work visas. In the hotel world where I spend all my time, we have highly seasonal locations, places like you know in Alaska, where you may only have three months out of the year that a place is really popular so popular that there's not a local audience or population to service the incoming tourists. And in locations like those, we hear hotels often say we're leveraging our J1s or the H2 or H-2B I could probably sound like naming Star Wars characters if I keep going. Could you break that down for us? What are these? How do they work?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Well, the J-1 visa runs through in the vein of soft diplomacy. So J-1 covers quite an assortment of visas, a lot of what you were describing on work and travel, the au pair program, high school student exchange, trainee and internship programs, all with the expectation that young people coming into the United States are having a learning experience, some in actual the workforce, but they do return home and there is a strong commitment to building in cultural components, cultural understanding of these participants when they come on program and that they're supported by organizations that either have staff or, in the case of AFS, have volunteers who support those participants while they're on program. H is a different world, that is, you know, coming to work here. It's non-immigrant, different categories. I'm not going to dabble in that. It's not really my world, but we stay in the vein of the J visa.

Matt Brown:

Is there an obstacle that you face now, that the organization faces now, that you didn't face 10 years ago?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Well, in the United States, and especially since COVID, not just 10 years ago we've seen an augmented challenge of getting placements in schools.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Finding host families has always been a challenge, you know, never really been super easy, but we've been able to do it.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

But we do find, with more demands on schools and educators, less resources, it is a bit tougher to get spots in public high schools. And so we at AFS USA have really worked to prioritize our efforts around engaging educators, giving back to schools, not just asking schools to host these students, but to really look to how we can partner with educators on a lot of their initiatives around building global competency into the curriculum. And really I mean just think about what the American classroom is like today. It's very multicultural. How can AFS help educators really benefit in that multicultural classroom and be at ease in a multicultural classroom? So in some states we've seen a lot of proactive policy around global competency being an officially part of curriculum and we love that, but not necessarily everywhere. So I would say schools has become a bigger challenge than, let's say, you know up until even the 80s, where there was just always, you know, an open door and always a capacity to have another student in school going abroad with AFS and doing the what at the time was a two-day orientation.

Jeff Borman:

I don't know if that's still the case when you arrive in your host country. Of the things that stuck with me and there were many, but real key was I remember our facilitator saying you are now, for all the people you meet about, to be the most important diplomat of your country. Yeah, that was probably the most frightening and coolest thing I had ever heard in my life. What could possibly these people have decided I should be the diplomat for the United States of America?

Matt Brown:

It's faulty logic for sure. Then and now I wanted to ask too, how? First, yeah, the process that would choose Jeff and of course, jeff is a gift to the world but what's the process like of coordinating these thousands of people involved, right, I mean, you've got all these kids, you have all these parents, you have them not just in country, but on the other side of the country. What happens when a student decides they want to be part of this program? What's their what's day? One of that look like.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

So you know the old days, jeff. Probably somebody came to your school or a volunteer was active in your school and they promoted AFS. We certainly do still try to do that. But of course the students that we have in the United States are ambassadors themselves in the countries where they're at and we do find the strongest influences is word of mouth. Someone has met an AFS student, somebody has met an AFS host family and they think, oh, this is kind of interesting. So the processes you do apply these days online you would go through an interview. We have volunteers both locally and also at the national level who would interview you. They're primarily former AFS participants, but we do have staff who are there to run information sessions for the students, run information sessions for the parents. It's not uncommon that a student applies and mom and dad don't even know that they've applied. So we want to make sure that we connect with mom and dad or their guardian. Dad don't even know that they've applied. So we want to make sure that we connect with mom and dad or their guardian and we go through a journey with them to get to know them.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

We are very committed at AFS USA to ensuring diversity in the students who we reach. We want to make sure we are reaching schools across the country and that access to these programs is available to anybody who wants to go, not just students who can pay for the participation. So we've really committed and increased our scholarship fundraising. So if you were a student that felt like this is out of reach, it's not out of reach. We ask you to please look at AFS and we will do everything possible to help finance that experience for you. We're not looking for the perfect student, right, because you're 17,. You're 16 and a half. You don't necessarily know who you are yet anyway, but we're looking for that level of interest, that level of flexibility and looking to an openness to go to many parts of the world.

Jeff Borman:

You mentioned that difference and I call it when my wife has heard this a few times. It was my Rush Limbaugh lesson. This was in again the early 90s and there was, within a three-month period of my life, sitting in the car with my mother and saying you know, these problems would all go away if everyone just thought like I do. And about three to five, six months later I remember the exact place. I was in Cannes, looking out at the water by myself, couldn't speak the language, couldn't talk to anybody around me, and thinking, thank God not everybody speaks and thinks the way I do, and that it could not have been a more 180 degree turn that changed life forever.

Matt Brown:

That is maybe the only positive lesson that has ever been associated with the name Rush Limbaugh, so congratulations, jeff. I've heard it in other contexts, but never one that was beneficial to humanity, and it's good to know that it's good to know that it finally paid off.

Jeff Borman:

You mentioned earlier, you're on the board for the Alliance for International Exchange and, by the way, happy exchange day.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Yes, happy exchange day yes.

Jeff Borman:

One of the bits of verbiage that is used there. That really stands out to me and I would love to get your take on the. Why is that US ambassadors rank exchange programs as the most useful catalysts, or one of the most useful catalysts, for long-term political change and mutual understanding? Well, from an AFS-er to another, that makes sense to the unfortunately large world who has not had the chance to have those experiences. Why is that?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

I think it's just a lived experience that we see so many alumni go back home and are motivated by their international exchange experience to do something for their own countries. Right, I think that ambassadors see it every day with the alumni when they come back. Ambassadors see it every day with the alumni when they come back no-transcript. So when you start to look at those metrics you realize you know you've got leadership skills. Leadership skills that have been touched by understanding another culture and being able and willing to listen and to consider another culture, another philosophy, another religion. Where are people coming from?

Matt Brown:

Tara, what's on your dream wish list for the organization? Where would it? Where would you like it to be in 10 years?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

My dream would be that every state in the United States has supportive legislation for high school exchange, that they support global education and they value it, they don't prevent students from going abroad, they're more open to having high school exchange students in their classrooms, and that we have more opportunities for teachers.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

That's a real dream and I think that's achievable if we continue to work the way we're working to get our messaging out and to engage with the educational community. That's so powerful to education today is the multicultural classroom and what role AFS can play in that. I also like to have a big dream that maybe AFS will be a Nobel Peace Prize winner someday, after all that we've been doing for over 75 years and that, at the end of the day, peace is part of it. Unfortunately, we see what's going on in parts of the world and so we're reminded our work has not been done. So we certainly have to be looking to what happens and hopefully what will be a short uh coming end to the war in ukraine, and also what happens in the middle east the world travels more than it's ever traveled.

Matt Brown:

People go more places than at any time in its history. Yet sometimes I think, especially if you get into a doom-scrolling news cycle, it can feel like America, particularly, is the most isolationist it's been for a while. It's hard sometimes for me to separate the reality from the hype. Do you ever encounter that in discussions with parents or kids of maybe having a fear of the world, maybe feeling like? I mean, I know most people who apply for the program have already kind of made that jump and they're kind of open to it. But does AMFES ever have to kind of counter that feeling of walls going up around us?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Yes, we do. It's there, working with participants and parents who are supportive of this kind of experience, and that we need to be doing more to reach people who perhaps this isn't their number one dream for their child to go on a program and be away from them for a year. I would say that we noticed a shift post-COVID, that parents are much more involved in the day-to-day lives of their children, that they really want more detail. I think our other biggest challenge of isolationism is also the phone and getting students to detach from this crazy thing so that they can actually immerse themselves and not just be traveling but constantly connected to everybody back home, constantly connected to mom and dad. I think, jeff, when you went, probably you weren't calling home all that often, right? And then you had it was very expensive, you know, and you had to immerse yourself, right? You had no choice. Now we have to be much more conscious about making that effort to immerse, and that's hard.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

I think we still have a lot of work to do at AFS USA to be reaching more communities and engaging more people. And you know, I just want to put a plug in here it may not be about going abroad, it may be about hosting an exchange student, and we find that that is often a great impetus for families once they've hosted and they've had this amazing experience with a student living with them for a year. We do see a lot of siblings that want to go on the program, or mom and dad are more interested in supporting their child going abroad and have become part of the AFS local community right. So they're supported by volunteers. They're connected to other families that are hosting and sending and that really is where we see this impact locally right. That we're. It's not just you're in and out, you're part of a community of AFS.

Matt Brown:

I would imagine too. It's a much thinner line between even even for the best intention kid. It's a much thinner line between experience and vacation, and I wonder how you counter that. You know it like this is supposed to be an experience for you, you and your body, not an experience for your Instagram account. Not that there's a problem necessarily posting on Instagram, but that it shouldn't be driven by. It shouldn't be driven by that.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

That's right. That's right and we do work very intentionally on that. And pre-departure orientation. Before they go and when they're in country the AFS country where they're hosted, the volunteers do support the student, not just at a formal orientation but with liaisons and to be sort of their guiding person throughout the experience to their guiding person throughout the experience. It's often hard for that student to really grasp what that means until they're there, right. And I will say that there is also a lot of value to having some crisis while you're on the program. You know that's a little startling, maybe not what we start out with parents before they go, but the value of crisis in learning that having something hard is a learning experience, right. So we do find that sometimes the students who went through and really didn't have any little bit of crisis maybe doesn't necessarily equate to meaning that was, that was the best experience. It's about getting below the surface.

Matt Brown:

It's time for the mystery question. If you were a teenager today, what country would you want to go to via AFS?

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

I think I'd want to go somewhere like Thailand or Vietnam, something that was someplace that was never on my radar until I, you know, was actually working at AFS in the early days of getting to work there. But I think really just as different a culture that I could come up with would be what I would want for myself to live over again. I think so much of crossing a border is so not physically transferring over that border, but transferring over to have a relationship with somebody across a border in another country. I think an experience like AFS is really meant to be the first part of constantly living with no borders right and just being respectful of people, and I often hear that one of the greatest learnings is that they realize people are really in so many ways the same, you know, and not quite as different. And are these borders just artificially you know there, and how do you mentally go across the border? It's all a journey. It's about getting that awakening right and kind of building your confidence and then wanting to go back for more.

Matt Brown:

Sarah Boyd-Soffman. Thank you. We will pack this up and send it to the Nobel Committee later this week.

Tara Boyce-Hofmann:

Please do with an express package please. We'll put like a hundred bucks on there and just kind of see.

Matt Brown:

let's just see what happens. Nobody will have to know, Just like FIFA.