The Foreign Service Journal, March 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2013 57 2012 AFSA ANNUAL REPORT AFSA NEWS AFSA’s 14th annual high school essay contest culminated in July with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pre- sentation of the first-place prize to Natasha Madorsky of Cleveland, Ohio. For the 2012 contest, AFSA welcomed two generous sponsorships. Leading strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton served as the official underwriter of the contest, making possible a $2,500 prize and an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. for Natasha and her parents, Dr. Elizabeth Stern and Mr. Michael Mador- sky. Her teacher and mentor, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Hull, accompa- nied them to Washington. Also new last year, the Institute for Shipboard Education’s Semester at Sea program (www.semesteratsea.org) is provid- ing Natasha with an all-expense-paid educational voyage aboard the shipboard campus, the M.V. Explorer . The Univer- National High School Essay Contest sity of Virginia sponsors the unique academic program, which provides students with a college semester while traveling the world for 100 days or more. Honorable mention certificates were awarded to 24 final- ists for their excellent essays. Essays went through three rounds of judging by a panel comprised of active and retired Foreign Service officers, teachers and private sector volun- teers. This year the quality of the nearly 500 submissions was far superior to what we have received over the past 13 years of the contest. We feel that this can be attributed to the incen- tive of the Semester at Sea voyage (worth close to $30,000), the opportunity for the winner and his or her parents to come to Washington, D.C., and meet the Secretary of State, and the generous cash prize. AFSA’s 2012 high school essay contest winner, Natasha Madorsky (center) with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is joined by (left to right) AFSA President Susan Johnson, Coordinator for Special Awards and Outreach Perri Green, AFSA intern Paul Carter, her mother, Dr. Elizabeth Stern, Institute for Shipboard Education Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert Waters, her father Michael Madorsky, Mona El-Banna from Booz Allen Hamilton and her teacher and mentor, Peggy Hull. DONNAAYERST