The Tang Institute hosted David McCullough III ’13, Co-Founder and CEO of the American Exchange Project (AEP), an organization that provides high school seniors with a free, week-long opportunity to visit American hometowns vastly different from their own. McCullough, whose nonprofit connects students across geographic and cultural divides, was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in Education in 2022.
Since its establishment, AEP has brought thousands of seniors to high schools across 36 states, bridging the gap between students of diverse backgrounds. McCullough elaborated on how various components, including other high schools, donors, and teachers, contribute to the program’s function.
“How it works is that we have amazing teachers in high schools across the country who run the program. They recruit students from their school, they host families, itineraries, and our students travel to town for free with no strict admission criteria. It’s really no harder to do this program than it is to get a library card. [They visit] another town in the country that is radically different politically, socioeconomically, and culturally. While they’re there, they live and hang out and take part in events and activities that show them what it’s like to grow up there,” said McCullough.
In the summer of 2016, McCullough, then a rising college senior, drove 7,100 miles across the country to research poverty’s impacts on education. McCullough elaborated on an important lesson he learned over the course of his trip, as well as how it ultimately correlated to AEP’s objectives.
“A big thing that I learned was that any issue in the world is fundamentally human, and any solutions are ultimately about relationships, about education, educators, and teachers’ resources. The fact is that too many young people in this country living in impoverished areas are just not able to have the same opportunities to broaden their horizons and expand themselves as much as kids who come from advantaged communities. We’re doing an American exchange project in many ways to try to broaden those kids’ horizons. Poverty’s impact is limiting the opportunities on young people’s ability to build themselves into the people they might become. The purpose of every education is to help every student fulfill their true potential, and you can’t do that unless you’re making every opportunity available to every kid,” said McCullough.
During his talk, McCullough detailed the importance of promoting civil discourse, particularly with regard to contentious issues. Linda de Boer ’27 noted a key takeaway she derived from his talk concerning community divisions that occur as a result.
“What I found really interesting was the statistics that he mentioned. I was really surprised by what he said about teenagers being less connected, communities being less connected in general, and communities being more polarized. I had no idea that was happening because I don’t live here but also, I think in Andover where we are in a relatively international community, it is hard to notice when other communities aren’t interacting with each other because we think of ourselves as the community that we live in,” said de Boer.
McCullough also noted that the AEP doesn’t aim only to recruit kids who are politically involved, but instead is trying to involve students with not only different backgrounds, but also varying levels and types of curiosity about the world around them. Katerina Browder ’26, co-president of the Andover Political Union (APU), noted how this aspect of the AEP has inspired her to approach how to increase interest in the APU in a different way.
“What we do in the Andover Political Union, bringing people together to talk about these types of topics, is important. I would focus more now on trying to recruit more people, and people who wouldn’t initially want to come and do this, because I think that’s who [discussion is] most impactful for,” said Browder.
As his main message, McCullough encouraged people to learn about and actively seek out the experiences and viewpoints of others, as that is the best way to help bridge gaps between differing parts of the country, and widen everyone’s individual horizons and perceptions of self. Nurul Izzah Khairunnisa ’25, an international student, elaborated on this concept of curiosity about differences and how it connects to her mindset about encountering American culture.
“[Something] that he brought up a few times is to be curious, don’t be judgmental. I find that to be a very amazing take that should be at the forefront of every single student[’s mind], especially given that we’re young people. Even though I am not an American, coming into America, I’m particularly aware that I’m going into a country where views are going to conflict with my own views…When I came here, I came with a view that is purely out of curiosity. I didn’t think of judging anyone because I knew that that’s not the way they’re living. I know that they’re just from a completely different environment from me, so I’m not going to judge,” said Khairunnisa.
