The Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) has become the first specialist contemporary music school in further and higher education to offer students an exchange programme between the UK and the US. Starting from 2014, ACM students have the option to study at both ACM in England and its sister college ACM@UCO in Oklahoma.

The lack of public debate, shifting attitudes towards civil liberties, insufficient disclosure, and a decreasing terrorist threat demands that collecting Americans' phone and Internet records must meet the absolute highest bar of public consent. It's a test the Obama administration is failing.

Strip away the ostensibly benign surface of public diplomacy, cultural exchanges and language instruction, and it becomes clear that the U.S. and China are engaged in a soft power conflagration – a protracted cultural cold war.

Erdem Gunduz, the “Standing Man” performance artist who instigated a wave of peaceful protests throughout Turkey, participated in the Kennedy Center’s Cultural Exchange Visitors Program in 2007. The two-week arts education program, developed with the State Department, brought four modern dancers and two hip-hop dancers from Turkey to Washington and New York.

Au pair agencies have joined summer camp operators, hotels and an array of other companies that rely on cultural-exchange programs to provide their businesses with overseas labor to lobby against provisions in the Senate immigration bill aimed at regulating recruitment practices.

Several more companies have received licenses to operate people-to-people cultural exchange programs to Cuba. San Diego-based Classic Journeys offers 10 departures from June 29 to April 5. A seven-night guided tour includes visits with artists in the Luyano area in Havana; an exploration of Habana Vieja, the Unesco World Heritage Site; countryside walks in the Vinales Valley west of Havana; and meetings with farmers and students.

I mention this because – as I take leave as Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – I want to make Americans more aware of what the State Department does, --specifically public diplomacy- how much real value it brings to jobs overseas, jobs here, education, entrepreneurship, travel, tourism, and a healthy and robust trade and investment climate in both directions.