U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release
November 20, 2007
Media Note
2007/940  

The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board (FSB) elected Shirley Moore Green of Austin, Texas as Chair at its quarterly meeting in Washington, DC on November 2, 2007. Yousif B. Ghafari of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, was elected by the Board to serve as Vice Chair.

Shirley Green was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Fulbright Board in 2003. Ms. Green has served in government at the federal and state levels. She was Director of Communications Services in the Office of Texas Attorney General John Cornyn. She also served as Director of Constituent Services and Correspondence for Governor George W. Bush. In Washington, DC she managed communications for democracy programs at the International Republican Institute of the National Endowment for Democracy. She served in the White House from 1989-1993 as Deputy Assistant to the President for Presidential Messages and Correspondence. At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) she was Deputy Associate Administrator for Communications and Director of Public Affairs. She had previously served as deputy and acting press secretary for Vice President George Bush. Ms. Green served two terms as Vice Chair of the Fulbright Board, in 2006 and in 2007.

Yousif B. Ghafari was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Fulbright Board in 2005. Mr. Ghafari is founder and chairman of GHAFARI, Inc. a full-service organization of architects, engineers, consultants, and staffing specialists serving a global client base that includes the aviation, manufacturing, government, and commercial sectors. He is one of the Detroit area�s leading philanthropists. In 1995 he was named one of the Top 100 �Executive Heroes� in southeastern Michigan, and he is a member of the International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit�s �Hall of Fame�. In 2005, Wayne State University acknowledged his longtime support by renaming one of its residence buildings Yousif B. Ghafari Hall. Mr. Ghafari is on the Board of Trustees of the College for Creative Studies and Oakwood Healthcare, Inc. He is also on the Board of Directors for Automobile Club of Michigan, Dura Automotive Systems, Inc., the Economic Club of Detroit, and the Wayne State University Foundation. In 2004 and 2005, he served as Public Delegate Designate at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations for the 59th United Nations General Assembly.

The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board was established by Congress to supervise the Fulbright Program and to select its participants. Appointed by the President of the United States, the twelve members of the Board meet quarterly. They come from academic, business, cultural, and public life. Information about the FSB, including biographical information about its members, is available at http://fulbright.state.gov.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational program supported by the people of the United States and partner countries around the world and sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. The Fulbright Program has provided more than 279,000 participants with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, to exchange ideas and to contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.