Diplomat Special Section
In the May 2013 Issue
Job Jiu-Jitsu
Prepping College Grads for Life, and Work, Beyond the Classroom
by Carolyn Cosmos
Think protocol is easy? Tell that to President Obama, who was scalded by the British press early in his first term for giving British Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of "region 1" U.S.-coded DVDs that don't work in Europe. Or to his wife, Michelle, who broke royal protocol in giving Queen Elizabeth II a hug at Buckingham Palace.
The truth is that diplomatic protocol is a complicated business, even if you're dealing with a third secretary from Tuvalu, let alone the Queen of England. We spoke to two experts on diplomatic protocol to give readers a primer on how to navigate thorny issues such as gift giving, communication, attire, food, alcohol, meetings and seating arrangements.
Lukrecija Maljkovic Atanasovska is the former director of protocol at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia, and is currently the director of the Protocol Academies of Macedonia and Kosovo. Chris Young served as the chief of protocol and director of international affairs for the U.S. state of Georgia from 2005 to 2012 and is now the executive director of the Protocol School of Washington. Here are their thoughts on protocol best practices.
Experts in Etiquette
Practical Tips for Mastering Protocol Like a Pro
by Dave Seminara
Watch what you say: That young intern heading into Washington on the Metro might be training with the CIA. That's partly because the U.S. intelligence agency offers one of the most generous scholarships for college students — $18,000 a year to successful applicants, with few strings attached.
Besides the requirement of working for the CIA after graduation for one and a half years for every year of scholarship aid received, recipients have to maintain good grades while at school. But even though the CIA is best known for espionage and intelligence, that's not all it or any other U.S. intelligence agency does — and there are quite a few of those agencies. So students with a CIA scholarship can study whatever they want.
Not to be outdone, the DIA, or Defense Intelligence Agency, offers students majoring in everything from international relations to toxicology paid internships or generous scholarships. Seniors in high school can apply for the scholarship, and then have to get their choice of university approved by the DIA.
In the January 2013 Issue
Way Off Course
From Star Trek to Springsteen, Colleges Go Where No School's Gone Before
by Karin Zeitvogel
U.S. universities are known around the world for providing students with a top-flight education — and a course offered at Syracuse University in upstate New York fits that image nicely. Students who sign up for the course explore the final frontier and boldly go where no man has gone before, using Star Trek to study some of today's most pressing technological issues.
The course filled up the first day it was advertised back in 2011.
"Star Trek and the Information Age" is the brainchild of professor Anthony Rotolo, who said he wanted to offer something that would help interest students in pursuing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers.
"Star Trek offers a wealth of science and technology topics that can be discussed in the context of current questions or challenges in these fields or in society at large," Rotolo told The Washington Diplomat in an email.
Spy School
CIA, Other Government Agencies Offer Scholarships for Intelligent Intelligence
by Karin Zeitvogel
Watch what you say: That young intern heading into Washington on the Metro might be training with the CIA. That's partly because the U.S. intelligence agency offers one of the most generous scholarships for college students — $18,000 a year to successful applicants, with few strings attached.
Besides the requirement of working for the CIA after graduation for one and a half years for every year of scholarship aid received, recipients have to maintain good grades while at school. But even though the CIA is best known for espionage and intelligence, that's not all it or any other U.S. intelligence agency does — and there are quite a few of those agencies. So students with a CIA scholarship can study whatever they want.
Not to be outdone, the DIA, or Defense Intelligence Agency, offers students majoring in everything from international relations to toxicology paid internships or generous scholarships. Seniors in high school can apply for the scholarship, and then have to get their choice of university approved by the DIA.
In the November 2012 Issue
Sense of Community
Multicultural and Pragmatic, Community Colleges Go Global
by Carolyn Cosmos
YPei-Wen Liu, a business undergraduate student from Taiwan who is living and studying near D.C.'s Dupont Circle, says she texts his father in Taiwan every day.
"If I'm very busy and forget it, he'll complain!" she says, with affectionate laughter.
Her parents own an iron works company back home, and "I'm planning on going back to Taiwan to run the business with an older brother when they retire," she said, noting that she and her brother plan to take the company global.
A graduate of Howard Community College in Columbia, Md., Liu began her academic journey in the United States at the two-year institution located halfway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. She transferred this fall to the Dupont Circle campus of Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School to obtain her four-year college degree.
Mecca of Learning
With Its Sprawling Education City, Qatar Aims to Be Knowledge Hub
by Dave Seminara
Nasser Al Khori knew he wanted an American education, but he didn't bargain on getting it in his native Qatar. His father was educated at Seattle University and most of his classmates at the elite American School of Doha were planning to study in the United States. Al Khori was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania and was set to pack his bags for Philadelphia until he attended a presentation from Carnegie Mellon University in Doha.
"I decided to stay here because the business school at Carnegie is one of the top 10 in the world," said Al Khori, who graduated in May and now works as a program associate at the Qatar Foundation in Doha. . "And I figured I could get the same exact education right here at home as I would in the States."
Room to Grow
International Student House Offers Roof and Relationships
by Martin Austermuhle
Thousands of international students come to Washington, D.C., to study every year, jumping headfirst into a country and culture that may be completely alien to them. Beyond navigating the rituals of academic and social life in the United States, they're faced with the task of finding housing in a city that boasts an expensive — and extremely competitive — housing market.
In that, the International Student House is a refreshing surprise. Located in the heart of the desirable Dupont Circle neighborhood, the 100-year-old Tudor-style residence rises five stories over R Street, resembling a home that would be better placed in England than the U.S. capital. Inside, up to 100 graduate students from across the globe share both roof and relationship, living in a community that celebrates the many countries and cultures from which they hail.
Established in 1934 by the Quakers, the International Student House in D.C. — then located on New Hampshire Avenue and home to only 18 students from Georgetown, George Washington, Catholic, and American universities — sought to ease the transition of international students arriving in Washington for undergraduate and graduate studies. It also served as a refuge for students of color, both local and international, who were effectively shut out of rooming houses throughout large parts of the city due to de facto segregation.
In the October 2012 Issue
Yin and Yang
U.S.-China Partnership Marked By Collaboration, Competition
by Carolyn Cosmos
Yuan Wan is the son of Chinese government officials who grew up in the difficult years of the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution. Neither of his parents had a good high school education, nor did they attend college, although both acquired degrees later in life.
His parents wanted his own schooling to be better, Wan said. So they bought children's books for him, subscribed to every magazine imaginable, supported him in his studies, and talked to his teachers.
When Wan developed a love of math in high school, his father wanted him to pursue something practical such as engineering, but his mother persuaded him to allow Wan to go for what he describes as his "passion": physics.
Wan now has two physics degrees from Nanjing University and is working toward his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., in the university's Department of Physics and Astronomy.
World of Collaboration
With Flurry of New Programs, Meridian Moves With the Times
by Gail Sullivan
In 1919, after retiring from the Foreign Service, Irwin Boyle Laughlin built Meridian House at 1630 Crescent Place in Washington, D.C. But retirement didn't suit him, and he returned to the diplomatic corps, serving as ambassador to Greece, and then Spain until 1933. Like its owner, Meridian House found renewed purpose in the service of international diplomacy: In 1960, the Laughlin family sold the house to a newly created nonprofit dedicated to international understanding.
Today, the Meridian International Center, which occupies Meridian House and the adjacent White-Meyer House, is a leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering innovative international diplomacy through the exchange of people, ideas and culture.
Sporting Chance
Rugby, Cricket, Fencing, Other Sports Take on Traditional American Athletics
by Martin Austermuhle
When you think of the stereotypical American high school jock, what comes to mind? It's probably a beefy football player sporting a varsity jacket, less concerned with education than excelling on the gridiron. Or maybe a tall basketball star who has been recruited by the nation's top university sports programs, lured by the promise of scholarships and stardom.
Those may still exist, but for many area schools, traditional U.S. sports like football, baseball and basketball are being supplemented by teams and clubs that offer new athletic opportunities — many of them in sports that may have huge followings abroad but have until now remained on the fringes of American life.
And these "foreign" sports go far beyond the most obvious transplant: soccer, which — although not as popular on the professional level in the United States as it is around the world — is widely played by American schoolchildren (hence the cliché "soccer mom").
In the September 2012 Issue
A King's Vision
Thanks to Scholarship, Saudi Students Return to U.S. in Droves
by Suzanne Kurtz
After living in the United States for six years, Hani Aljuaid has developed a taste for American coffee.
"Every morning, I go to Starbucks. It's a habit I picked up" while studying at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the 25-year-old from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. "But at night, I have to have Arabic coffee."
Along with a newfound penchant for caffeine, Aljuaid recently completed a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics, one of nearly 68,000 Saudis studying this year at more than 1,200 universities and colleges across the United States as a participant in the King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP).
'Dream Job'
New International Affairs Head Wants The World for University of Maryland
by Suzanne Kurtz
In 1976, when Ross Lewin was 16 years old, he left his Los Angeles home for the first time to spend the year in Hannover and Hamburg, Germany, as an exchange student with the program Youth for Understanding.
Decades later, he still recalls this experience "to see the world from outside of the U.S." as "incredibly formative." Eventually, it would also help shape both his worldview and career.
As the newly appointed associate vice president for international affairs at the University of Maryland, Lewin said he hopes to bring new international programs to the College Park campus "and transform the lives of students, the way mine had been."
Language of 21st Century
Op-Ed: To Cpmpete, Americans' Future Has to Be Multilingual
by Linda Moore
We Americans must confront a stark disadvantage we face when it comes to the global economy. Some eight in 10 Americans speak only English, and the number of schools teaching a foreign language is in decline, according to a new study by the Council on Foreign Relations. But the opposite is true among our economic competitors.
While some 200 million Chinese students are learning English, only 24,000 Americans are studying Chinese, U.S. Department of Education statistics say. Foreign language degrees account for only 1 percent of all U.S. undergraduate degrees. And fewer than 2 percent of U.S. undergraduates study abroad in a given year, the Education Department says.
Our nation is largely monolingual but is entering an increasingly multilingual world. More than half of European Union citizens speak a language other than their mother tongue, and more than a quarter speak at least three languages. This is because additional languages are studied in European primary and secondary schools, and are taken up by European college students in much larger numbers than in the United States.
In the May 2012 Issue
The 'Stan' Surge
Rise of Central Asian Students In U.S. Reflects Region's Growth
by Carolyn Cosmos
Here's a puzzle: College campuses across the United States have seen a 32 percent increase in international students since 2000, reports the Institute of International Education (IIE) — even though global test scores show that the U.S. education system is lagging far behind its overseas counterparts such as powerhouses like Finland and Singapore.
High school students in the United States ranked 32nd among nations in math proficiency tests last year and were 17th in reading, according to a study headed by Harvard professor Paul Peterson.
However odd this conundrum, the steady stream of international students coming to the United States makes sense, said Allan Goodman, president and chief executive officer of IIE, a nonprofit based in New York City.
Endless Summer
Area Offers All Kinds of Camps To Keep All Kinds of Kids Happy
by Rachael Bade
Some of my favorite memories growing up were created during summers spent hundreds of miles from home. Every year, my mom and dad drove me to auditions for summer ballet camps with professional dance companies — Cincinnati Ballet, Ballet Austin, San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre.
When the last school bell rang for summer dismissal in June, my parents would give me five weeks' worth of goodnight kisses and bid me farewell at the airport. I spent my breaks in square-rimmed studios with dozens of wannabe ballerinas training under some of the world's best choreographers.
Summer camps — even those located just a few miles away from home — are a constructive way for children of all ages to discover and nurture their special talents. Many don't just help kids pass the time on those long summer days. They help them figure out what makes them unique.
In the January 2012 Issue
Indian Influx
Higher Education's Frequent Flyers: International Students Flock to U.S.
by Carolyn Cosmos
Although times are tough around the world, the economic climate hasn't dampened the recent surge in higher education exchanges, with internationally minded students increasingly crossing borders to seek their college degrees and broaden their cultural horizons.
The influx is bringing top talent from emerging nations to U.S. colleges and universities, which, despite constant bad press about America's flailing education system, remain among the best in the world. Many of these students return to help their homelands prosper, leading to some controversy that the U.S. government should be investing more in visas and incentives for these foreign recruits to stay and build up the U.S. economy.
But regardless, their presence, even if only temporary, provides a much-needed financial boost to U.S. schools, with international students often able to pay full or higher levels of tuition. Moreover, it contributes to the prestige and diversity of U.S. colleges and universities, who are training some of the world's brightest minds and its future leaders.
Hungry to Learn
D.C. International Food Days Offer Students Culinary-Cultural Adventure
by Julie Poucher Harbin
It's not every day that you get to meet a real prince. But on Oct. 26, the students of Miner Elementary School in Northeast D.C. did just that when 500 school children between the ages of 6 and 11 got a taste of Swedish food, culture and royalty firsthand.
Swedish Prince Daniel Westling, as part of his first official visit to the United States, visited Miner Elementary on the occasion of Nordic Food Day, the first of four new International Food Day events being held this school year by D.C. Public Schools Food Services in partnership with the longstanding Embassy Adoption Program, itself a partnership with the Washington Performing Arts Society.
Fifth-grader Keith Herbert and fourth-grader Julisa Williams, the official Miner student hosts, dressed as a Viking and Swedish storybook character Pippi Longstocking, respectively, to welcome the prince.
Julisa held a card that said "god dag" — good day in Swedish. Keith, who had been studying Sweden for weeks in his classroom as part of the Embassy Adoption Program, said he'd already gotten a small taste of Swedish culture that morning — traditional lingonberry juice for breakfast in the school cafeteria.
Connected Classrooms
One World Makes Planet Smaller for D.C. Students
by Larry Luxner
More than 1,700 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan, yet nine in 10 American high school students can't find that war-ravaged country on a world map.
Fewer than 40 percent of young adults know that China and India are the only two countries with more than 1 billion inhabitants each. Equally troubling, 74 percent of American students believe English is the world's most commonly spoken language (Mandarin is). And while just about every teenager in America has a Facebook account, only 11 percent of these kids use the Internet to follow current events around the world.
These findings, taken from the latest National Geographic Literacy Survey, deeply worry Asjed Hussain, an 18-year-old freshman at Georgetown University — and one of three local "project ambassadors" with the One World Youth Project.
OWYP, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004, aims to fight ignorance about the world by using email, Skype and Facebook to pair U.S. secondary schools with classrooms in other countries, and eventually by broadening the program internationally.
In the November 2011 Issue
Campus Diplomacy
Ambassadors Reach U.S. Students With Regular Visits to Universities
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Education is the surest antidote to misconception, so it should come as little surprise that many ambassadors to the United States try to inform people about their countries via many avenues, especially the media and politicians. But beyond the usual outlets — and the confines of the Beltway — lies a vast community that's home to an eager audience and the future generation of leaders: American students, hundreds of thousands of them all the way from Washington, D.C., to Washington state.
"I reach audiences that I otherwise would not reach," said Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie, who has spoken at universities including Eastern Illinois and Duke. "Of course, I appear in the media, I occasionally write articles in the media, but these don't reach everyone, and the United States is not just Washington. I do my job in Washington, but part of my duty is to reach out and make sure that public opinion is well informed, and I'm using universities and schools as a kind of multiplier because these people are connected to their communities, they are leaders and thinkers."
Overdue Makeover
Huge Modernization Campaign Transforms D.C. School System
by Martin Austermuhle
Cardozo Senior High School cuts an imposing figure, a hulking structure that overlooks Washington, D.C., from its perch between Florida Avenue and Clifton Street, NW, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.
Originally built as Central High School in 1916 and intended for use by white students in the city's segregated school system, architect William Ittner designed the building in a Collegiate Gothic style, with limestone trim and tile work juxtaposed against the dark red bricks used for the majority of the construction.
According to observers at the time, Ittner "conceived the modern school as a splendid civic monument, to become a potent factor in the academic development of the community." The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
In the October 2011 Issue
Game, Set, Match
U.S. Plays Up Power of Sports In Win-Win Approach to Diplomacy
by Jacob Comenetz
The use of sports to foster peace can be traced to ancient Greece, when the kings of the dominant city-states signed a truce, or ekecheiria (literally, a "holding of hands"), guaranteeing the safety of athletes, their families and pilgrims traveling to and from the Olympic Games.
"During the truce, wars were suspended, armies were prohibited from entering Elis [the site of the ancient Olympics] or threatening the Games, and legal disputes and the carrying out of death penalties were forbidden," according to the Perseus Digital Library of Tufts University.
Today, sports have again taken center field as an instrument for promoting international harmony as the U.S. Department of State, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has rapidly expanded the range and geographical reach of its sports-related engagement programs.
Also See: UAE Embassy Scores With Women's Soccer and UAE Helps Joplin Students
Untested Waters
Schools Size Up Teachers Using Value-Added Evaluation Measures
by Carolyn Cosmos
The heated debate over how to improve America's education system has in recent years centered largely on teachers — how they perform and what to do if they're not up to the task. But to judge that performance requires evaluating it — a concept that's often thrown around in the debate but given little penetrating thought. It's one thing to simply say bad teachers should be fired, but what's bad? How exactly do you define the metrics of success? How much weight should factors ranging from career experience to test scores to student surroundings be given?
Those gritty details of evaluation criteria have a tremendous impact, determining how to implement reforms aimed at boosting the quality of the country's teaching workforce — not to mention determining who gets to hang onto their jobs and which schools receive precious funds.
In the September 2011 Issue
Under Pressure
Are the Rigors of Testing Producing Generation of Students Under Strain?
by Stephanie Kanowitz
Photo: Leah-Anne Thompson / iStock
If you're older than 20, chances are you look back on childhood as an easy time when the biggest decision you faced was when that next game of tag with your friends would be. But youngsters today might have different memories when they're older. They may look back at their formative years and say, "Remember your standardized test prep?"
Case in point: A kindergartener in Arlington, Va., tells her family about her day at school, and after listening to what she learned, her third-grade brother says, "You should really remember what you're learning in kindergarten because they're going to be testing you on some of this stuff in third grade."
Enterprising Revolution
LearnServe Egypt Exchange Seizes Moment of Opportunity
by Jacob Comenetz
Photo: Larry Luxner
On Jan. 25, the "Day of Rage" that sparked the Egyptian revolution and the demise of President Hosni Mubarak, Omar Abdel-Maksoud, a mechanical engineering student at the British University in Cairo, received a Facebook invitation to "join the revolution" in Tahrir Square.
Clicking "maybe," he called a friend who had already joined the tens of thousands of protestors thronging the square. Hearing that not much yet was actually happening, Abdel-Maksoud told the friend he would call back later. He had to get ready for a trip to Turkey in any case.
Like many young Egyptians, Abdel-Maksoud expected the protests, a recurring facet of life in Cairo, to die away. During the week he was away, the protests did the opposite: they escalated.
In the May 2011 Issue
Speaking the Same Language
Despite High-Tech Translation Tools, Local Mulilingual Learning Thrives
by Jacob Comenetz
Photos: Isabella & Ferdinand Spanish Language Adventures
In a recent video segment for the New York Times called, "The Monolinguist's Crutch," assistant technology editor Sam Grobart gleefully divulges that he can't remember any of the Spanish he learned during six years of taking it in school.
Does this concern him? No, he says, because "now, thanks to technology, I don't have to!"
Grobart goes on to demonstrate the capabilities of several new smartphone applications, including UN Translator, which can understand dozens of languages. "All I have to do is type in the words I don't know," he said. The app gives a passable translation that allows him to at least get the gist.
Model Teachers
Singapore, Finland Offer Lessons With Their Emphasis on Educators
by Dena Levitz
Photo: U.S. Department of Education
Education is not only about learning — it's about the teachers who make learning possible. Education has also always been something of a competitive pursuit, with rankings and scores showing how school districts, college campuses and even entire nations stack up on a relative scale.
Earlier this spring, mixing international camaraderie and competition-driven improvement, nations came together to learn from one another's education systems — and specifically, how different countries treat the teachers who form the backbone of those systems.
In mid-March, the U.S. Department of Education, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), along with various other groups joined together to put on the first-ever International Summit on the Teaching Profession.
