Mohamed Abdel-Kader, deputy assistant secretary in the International and Foreign Language Education Office at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education, spoke at Vanderbilt University March 18. Abdel-Kader, a 2003 graduate of Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development’s Master of Education program, returned to campus to give the keynote address at a conference hosted by Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American Studies on building sustainable distance-learning models for the instruction of less commonly taught Latin American languages.
Abdel-Kader spoke about the importance of building cross-cultural communication skills. “The 21st century brings with it a multitude of opportunities for people around the world to engage, but they must have the global competencies to understand the challenges ahead and solve the world’s most pressing issues,” he said.