by Anna Linvill
On Tuesday, November 19th, 2024, the Rethinking Diplomacy Program (RDP) hosted a day-long Foreign Service Career Day at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Students, faculty, staff, and professionals from across the Triangle came to Sanford to participate in the day’s activities. Dr. Giovanni Zanalda, Director of the Duke Rethinking Diplomacy Program, welcomed the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) Director, Ambassador Joan A. Polaschik and guests, including retired ambassadors and active and retired Foreign Service Officers (FSOs).
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Ambassador Polaschik was appointed Director of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in May 2022. In this capacity, she serves as the Chief Learning Officer for the Department of State and the federal foreign affairs community. She joined the FSI team in February 2020, serving as Dean of the School of Professional and Area Studies and the Institute’s Deputy Director prior to assuming her current role. Polaschik spent the 2019-2020 academic year as a Senior State Department Fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, teaching courses on U.S. diplomatic statecraft and North Africa.
Session I: “Diplomacy in Action – Consider a Career Path with Global and Local Impact.”
In a candid style, Ambassador Polaschik shared some of the ups and downs of her career in the Foreign Service, the skills one needs for success in the Foreign Service, how she approaches transitions in U.S. leadership, changing political priorities and moral quandaries in U.S. foreign policy, and why she believes students and professionals should consider a career in the U.S. Foreign Service.
She explained that the average age upon entry of new Foreign Service professionals is 38, much older than one might expect for someone embarking on a new career, and older on average, than in the past. Many new FSOs have spent some time working in other fields or studying for advanced degrees before embarking upon a career in the Foreign Service. The Foreign Service selection process is, in fact, designed to reward candidates, including recent graduates, who have demonstrated maturity, experience, and good judgement.
Polaschik explained the U.S. State Department has many fellowship programs and internships for students and recent graduates that lead to an appointment as a Foreign Service Officer. For instance, Sanford Master in Public Policy (MPP) student Harrison Schreiber is a William D. Clarke Diplomatic Security Fellow with the Department of State studying global security issues. He spent some time as a public affairs intern with the State Department and is now working for the Diplomatic Security Service on the Cyber Threat Investigations team. Sanford MPP student Tatiana Farmer is studying computer science and Japanese. She and Harrison are both Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellows. MPP student, Eni Owoeye began her journey into the U.S. Foreign Service in 2021 with the US Foreign Service Internship Program. She is a 2022 Thomas R. Pickering Fellow, and will begin her career in the Foreign Service in July 2025.
These are just a few of many opportunities available to students interested in a career in the Foreign Service.
Ambassador Polaschik earned a BA from the University of Virginia and a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University before joining the U.S. Foreign Service in 1994 Although she studied Russian language and history, her career of more than thirty years has focused not on Eastern Europe and the former USSR, as she had expected, but the Middle East and North Africa. She was assigned as Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (2017-2019) and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria (2014-2017). She served as Director of the State Department’s Office of Egypt and Levant Affairs; Director of the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S Embassy in Tripoli, Libya; Regional Refugee Coordinator based at the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan; Political Officer in Tunisia; and other staff-level assignments in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. She also served in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
Polaschik emphasized that while many Foreign Service Officers study languages, political philosophy and social sciences, the U.S. Foreign Service is also looking to recruit students and professionals from STEM fields. As we know, diplomatic discussions throughout the world are intensifying around climate, global health, energy, AI and technology, ocean, and space, among other topics. The Foreign Service is increasingly relying on foreign service and civil service professionals, as well as special envoys with technical expertise to handle negotiations around these more technical issues.
With growing political tension and two major wars causing increasing anxiety globally, audience members wondered how Polaschik has weathered the complexities and shifting policy priorities of often very different administrations through three decades of service, and particularly how she handles situations in which she has been asked to execute or promote policies with which she morally disagrees. She reminded the audience that when a new Foreign Service Officer (FSO) joins the State Department, they take an oath to support and defend not a particular person, ideology, or political party, but the U.S. Constitution. She emphasized that the FSO’s job is not to make policy, but to be eyes and ears abroad and to provide the American people’s democratically elected leaders with the best possible information, analysis, and advice. It is up to the people’s representatives to decide what to do in any given circumstance, and it is up to foreign service professionals to implement those decisions. It is then up to historians to determine if those decisions were the right ones. Even so, she emphasized that it is important to know where your red lines are. She explained that there are several options available to you if you strongly oppose a specific policy. The State Department has a well-known dissent channel, you can ask to be moved to another assignment, and you can always resign in protest, as some FSOs famously have done.
Session II: “Rethinking Diplomatic Training”
Building on some of the themes and discussion in Session I, Ambassador Polaschik delivered a public address on “Rethinking Diplomatic Training” during Session II, to a packed audience of faculty, students, staff, and retired Foreign Service Officers.
Three years ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined a vision to modernize American diplomacy which is grounded in the understanding that an entirely new set of global issues, including climate, global health, and cybersecurity, is redefining national security. To successfully advance U.S. interests in this changing world, U.S. diplomats not only need fluency in these new issue sets, but they also need an organizational culture that values and rewards career-long learning. As part of Secretary Blinken’s Modernization Agenda, the Foreign Service Institute has embarked on an ambitious, multi-year program to better align diplomatic training to U.S. strategic objectives and change the way the State Department thinks about learning.
Ambassador Polaschik explained that in the past, the U.S. Foreign Service Institute emphasized early career and foreign language training, with few opportunities for mid- and late-career learning. This began to change during General Colin Powell’s tenure as Secretary of State. Coming from the Department of Defense, which requires leadership and other types of training as a condition for promotion to higher ranks and specific types of assignments, Powell was shocked that this was not the case in the State Department. When he assumed the role of Secretary of State, Powell instituted mandatory leadership training for all Foreign Service and Civil Service employees. There was a huge culture change at the State Department as a result.
Continuing the work Powell began, in 2024, the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI) created an office of the Provost to assess and oversee the continuing education curriculum at FSI. Dr. Cassandra C. Lewis , former Chancellor and Dean of Faculty and Academic Programs at the National Defense University (NDU) College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) has recently joined FSI as the new Provost. Dr. Lewis is tasked with overseeing a State Department-wide assessment of its training programs and the development of a curriculum for career long learning in the U.S. Foreign Service.
Asked about whether she thought the incoming administration would continue efforts to modernize the department and improve diplomatic training, Polaschik, who has served through both Republican and Democratic administrations, including the first Trump administration, said that while she cannot predict what the second Trump administration will prioritize and how it will approach the complex challenges facing the world today, she believes the incoming administration is interested in making sure the U.S. Foreign Service has the skills needed to effectively advance U.S. foreign policy goals. She also noted that FSI’s ongoing reform effort is grounded in bipartisan legislation.
Session III: Networking
The third session of RDP’s U.S. Foreign Service Career Day was a networking event for students interested in the U.S. Foreign Service. During this event, organized by RDP Senior Fellow Ambassador (ret) Bob Pearson and RDP coordinator, Anna Linvill, students had the opportunity to meet in small groups with retired ambassadors and veteran members of the Foreign Service from the State Department, USAID, the Peace Corps, and the Civil Service including Ambassador Joan Polaschik, Ambassador Patrick Duddy, NC Central Director of the Office of International Affairs, James T. Ham, Michael J. Hinton, Joyce Namde, Margaret C. Pearson, Dean Peterson, Brenda Schoonover, Pirkko Urli, Liz Coulton, Ron Roof, an active Diplomatic Security Specialist and Counter Terrorism Program (CTTP) Fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy, and Kathryn Crockart, a U.S. State Department Global Talent Manage. The goal of this event was to provide the opportunity for students to learn firsthand about careers in the U.S. Foreign Service and make lasting connections that will help them throughout their careers, whether or not they decide to join the Foreign Service.
“The event was incredible as I didn’t have this kind of exposure to diplomats when I was in undergrad, so it was fantastic to speak with career veterans in the lead up to my own preparation of joining the FS.”
-Eni Owoeye
For those who were unable to attend this event or want to learn more about careers in the U.S. Foreign Service, please reach out to the Diplomat in Residence for the Mid-Atlantic region, Stephanie Hutchison, and visit careers.state.gov for more information.
This Rethinking Diplomacy Program event is part of a series of events on working towards an advanced, Anticipatory Diplomacy. The U.S. Foreign Service Career Day was cosponsored by the Sanford School of Public Policy, the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy, Duke Global, and the John Hope Franklin Center (JHFC). Thanks especially to the Diplomat in Residence for the Middle Atlantic, Stephanie Hutchison, for her work mentoring future diplomats at Duke and throughout North Carolina, and State Department Global Talent Manager, Kathryn Crockart, who fielded questions and provided information about State Department fellowships, internships, and study abroad programs during this event. We are grateful for the ongoing support of the Mary Duke Trent Jones and Harris Families and the Trent Foundation for their support to promote international understanding.
