School of Foreign Service - Georgetown

SFS' Security Studies Program (SSP) has reason to be proud as a recent alumna and a current student took first and second place respectively in a national essay contest commemorating the September 11th attacks.

Sara Moller (G’06), won first place and a scholarship of $20,000 in the National Richard A. Clarke Graduate Student Monograph Contest sponsored by the California-based Center for First Amendment Studies.

Second place and a scholarship of $10,000 went to Dimitar Georgiev (G’13).

“It’ a great honor and also very personal for me,” Moller says. “For my generation and many others 9/11 was a defining moment. ... It forced me to re-examine what I thought I knew and believed about the world.

Her monograph titled, “Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001” made several policy recommendations, including an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the full story from Georgetown University's Office of Communications.

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SFS' Security Studies Program (SSP) has reason to be proud as a recent alumna and a current student took first and second place respectively in a national essay contest commemorating the September 11th attacks.

Sara Moller (G’06), won first place and a scholarship of $20,000 in the National Richard A. Clarke Graduate Student Monograph Contest sponsored by the California-based Center for First Amendment Studies.

Second place and a scholarship of $10,000 went to Dimitar Georgiev (G’13).

“It’ a great honor and also very personal for me,” Moller says. “For my generation and many others 9/11 was a defining moment. ... It forced me to re-examine what I thought I knew and believed about the world.

Her monograph titled, “Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001” made several policy recommendations, including an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the full story from Georgetown University's Office of Communications.

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Trish Wilson (F'83) has been appointed deputy Latin America and Caribbean editor for The Associated Press.

The appointment was announced Friday by John Daniszewski, AP's senior managing editor for international news and photography, and by Latin America Editor Marjorie Miller in Mexico City.

Wilson will oversee enterprise and investigative reporting and help manage news coverage in English for AP's U.S. and international audience in the region that stretches from the U.S. border in the north to Tierra del Fuego in South America, plus the Caribbean.

"Wilson brings a wealth of experience, particularly in complex subjects and investigations, which will serve AP's readers well. As a Nicaraguan-American, she has a lifelong interest in Latin American affairs and a commitment to telling the stories of this fascinating region to the world," said Daniszewski.

Congrats to Trish! Click for more information on Trish Wilson's AP Appointment (via Huffington Post)

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Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ann Van Dusen as Interim Director of the new Master of Arts in Global Human Development program. This two-year degree is designed to prepare graduates to be change-makers and leaders in development practice in the dynamic world of the 21st century. The first students will be enrolled in September 2012.

Dr. Van Dusen comes to this assignment after a distinguished career in development, in both the public and private sector and in academia. She worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for 25 years as both a social scientist and senior manager, serving in Washington in USAID’s Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination, Bureau for Asia and the Near East, Bureau for Science and Technology and Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support and Research. She has also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Save the Children/US and Interim CEO of EnterpriseWorks/VITA.

Dr. Van Dusen has taught courses on development at SFS since 1999 and has also taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She serves on the boards of a number of international non-profits and foundations and has advised for-profit companies and private foundations on strategies to achieve development impact.

“Dr. Van Dusen is already well-known to the development community and to the School of Foreign Service, where she has taught as a full-time visiting professor and as an adjunct over the years,” said SFS Dean Carol Lancaster. “With her unique combination of academic and practical experience, I know she will help establish a master’s program that will become one of the premier programs of its kind.”

Dr. Van Dusen received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Her doctoral research focused on social change in the Arab world and the impact on women and the family. She has published articles on social indicators, health and poverty, women and family in the Arab world, foreign aid reform and most recently on education system reform in the developing world. She also received her master’s from Johns Hopkins SAIS as well as a B.A. from Wellesley College.

The Global Human Development degree will provide students with exposure to the theories and accumulated knowledge of development – including economic development and social, political and cultural elements of development – as well as practical skills, such as program and project design, monitoring and evaluation, budgeting, accounting and finance, and statistical methods for development. The program will also provide students with a unique opportunity to blend theory and practice through a summer program in a developing country, a capstone project to provide consulting assistance to public, private and not for profit development agencies, and an innovation lab to introduce students to technology and development innovations. The goal of the program is to prepare students for the challenges of working in different development organizations and environments. Learn more at ghd.georgetown.edu.

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The National Journal's widely read quadrennial feature on Capitol Hill staff standouts features four SFS graduates.

Rita Lari Jochum (F'84/L'91), Minority Chief Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee:

Jochum still has a note of awe in her voice when she talks about working on constitutional issues, the kind of tone that is not uncommon with first-generation Americans. The daughter of a Thai mother and an Italian father, she hails from nearby McLean, Va. A “double Hoya,” Jochum graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and went to Georgetown Law at night while working as a paralegal.

Bethany Little (F'95), Majority Chief Education Counsel, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee

A graduate of Georgetown University, Little began her career at the Education Department. She went on work at the White House Domestic Policy Council and served as a policy adviser to President Clinton (F'68) and Vice President Al Gore.

Doug Seay (F'80), Majority Senior Professional Staff Member, House Foreign Affairs Committee

He attended Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, getting his start in government as a Foreign Service Officer in Turkey for four years. He still speaks some Turkish and also studied French and Russian.

Matt Weidinger (F'87), Majority Staff Director, Human Resources Subcommittee, House Ways and Means Committee

Except for a brief stint as manager of government relations for USX, Weidinger has been on the Hill since; he has held his current post as Republican staff director for the Human Resources panel since 2001. There, he focuses on welfare, child-welfare, unemployment, and related benefits programs. Weidinger majored in foreign service at Georgetown University before heading to the University of Chicago for a master’s degree in political science.

It's also worth noting that there are ten total Hoyas profiled -- more than any other college or university!

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Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla (G’89) urged students to nurture their values in her keynote address to the Class of 2011 during SFS undergraduate commencement ceremonies May 21.

President Chinchilla spoke about some of her administration’s accomplishments in Costa Rica, including broadened internet access and her work on climate change. Costa Rica is one of the oldest democracies in its region of the world, and she attributed its success to three things.  “I come from a country that holds dear this triad of values: freedom, solidarity and peace,” Chinchilla said.

She continued that freedom depends on respect for the freedom of others and that we must live at peace with ourselves to realize our full potential.

Chinchilla mentioned that conservation efforts in Costa Rica started about 40 years ago with reforestation. She said hopes to make Costa Rica carbon-neutral in the next decade. “Our solidarity with future generations depends on our solidarity with nature,” she said.

The Georgetown Public Policy Institute graduate was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.  Erick Langer, a professor and director of the Center for Latin American Studies, read the honorary degree citation. “Today, in recognizing Laura Chinchilla Miranda, the first woman to be president of Costa Rica, Georgetown University honors a life dedicated to building democracy and community,” he said.

Chinchilla’s career in public service includes work as a consultant on judicial and public security reform in Latin America and Africa on behalf of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.N. Development Program and the Inter-American Development Bank. Chinchilla concluded by saying, “It is my fondest hope that you find the freedom to choose your path, the solidarity of your loved ones to pursue it and the peace that comes with knowing that you are well on your way.”

“I thought it was a beautiful ceremony,” Sylmarie Trujillo (F ’11) said after commencement.

“It was very well-done,” Daniel Lim (F ’11) added in regard to the entire commencement. “The procession went very smoothly,” he added.

A total of 351 students in earned the Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree at Georgetown’s Washington campus.  Another 47 earned the BSFS degree at SFS-Qatar, bringing the size of the graduating class to 398.  The undergraduate and graduate SFS ceremonies concluded a week of celebrations that also included senior convocation, the senior ball and BSFS and MSFS Tropaia ceremonies.

Read more about undergraduate Commencement and the BSFS and MSFS Tropaia events.

Jen Lennon | June 2011

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Student speaker Matthew Shapiro's remarks were a highlight of the BSFS Tropaia awards ceremony Friday afternoon:

As a 2011graduate of the School of Foreign Service (SFS), Matthew Shapiro says he is most grateful for the sense of community he was able to establish while a student at Georgetown.

“The most valuable lessons of the past four years have not come from the classroom, but from everyone in this room and the larger Georgetown community,” Shapiro said at this year’s SFS Tropaia ceremony. “We were here to support each other and to challenge one another to do things we might have thought were impossible before meeting each other.”

Click to read more.

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Georgetown Women in International Affairs (GWIA) held a tea April 18, bringing women in powerful positions together to mingle with graduate students.  It’s hoped that the tea will become an annual event for GWIA, which is a signature initiative of SFS Dean Carol Lancaster.

The prestigious guests included Dr. Paula J. Dobriansky, senior vice president and global head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters; Ambassador A. Elizabeth Jones, who has extensive international experience in Europe, Eurasia, South Asia and the Middle East and is currently a senior counselor at APCO Worldwide; Nisha Desai Biswal, an assistant administrator for Asia at USAID; Jan Piercy, executive vice president with ShoreBank Corporation; and Sarah Margon, associate director for the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

Students sat with guests at small tables and got the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. Margon advised one student that “the best way to get a job on the Hill is to intern there” and told her to start with states where she has lived.

Ambassador Jones told her table that she felt that being a woman in foreign service was an advantage in the Middle East because she could speak with both men and women and she was easily recognizable.

While plenty of business cards got passed around, the students got some inside scoop on work-life balance, navigating a strategic career and where to get started after graduate school.

Georgetown Women in International Affairs (GWIA) aims to strengthen the competencies which are the foundation of quality leadership among our graduate students to increase visibility of women in international affairs. Through interactive programming, GWIA connects, empowers, and prepares emerging women leaders.

-Jen Lennon │April 19, 2011

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Daniel L. Shields III -- a BSFS graduate -- is now several weeks into his latest assignment.  Shields was nominated in December by the Obama administration to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Brunei; his appointment was confirmed in early 2011.

When Shields testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he described his experience at the State Department and highlighted the importance of America's relationships across Southeast Asia.

I am currently the Director in the State Department's Office of Mainland Southeast Asia. In previous assignments, I have served as Deputy Chief of Mission, and for over a year Chargé d'Affaires, at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore, and as Political Minister Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. I understand the importance of building strong partnerships in Asia to safeguard the well-being and safety of the American people.

Located on the northwest coast of the Island of Borneo and astride the sea lanes of the South China Sea, Brunei is one of our key Asian partners and friends. Brunei is a reliable exporter of oil and gas, a responsible voice among majority Muslim nations, and a source of stability in Southeast Asia. Brunei plays an important role in organizations including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The United States-Brunei relationship provides important benefits to both countries in a number of areas including economics and trade, law enforcement and military-to-military cooperation, environmental protection, and people-to-people exchanges.

As the people of Brunei address the challenges of the future, they can count on the friendship of the United States.

Congratulations to Daniel Shields as he takes on this new assignment!

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Many SFS graduates pursue careers in diplomacy or international business, but one of the terrific things about the BSFS program is that its foundation in the liberal arts prepares graduates for opportunities in a range of fields where creativity and big-picture thinking are valued.

It's no surprise, then, that Lesley McKenzie (F '01) is rising quickly to prominence in the world of journalism.  According to FishbowlLA, McKenzie has been named the next editor-in-chief of Angeleno magazine.

Prior to this, she served as Managing Editor of several Niche Media titles including Michigan Avenue, which she helped successfully launch. McKenzie holds an undergraduate degree in international relations from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a master’s degree in journalism from New York University. “We are excited to have a seasoned journalist like Lesley join our team. Her experience in both magazine and newspaper journalism will help us tremendously as we grow our footprint in LA,” said Alan Klein, Group Publisher for Modern Luxury and Publisher of Angeleno.

Congratulations to Lesley McKenzie!

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