68 MARCH-APRIL 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL RETIREMENT SUPPLEMENT Diplomacy in Demand University Students Are Eager to Learn from Practitioners Mark C. Storella is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. From 1985 to 2020, he was a Foreign Service officer who worked on five continents, including as ambassador to Zambia, deputy assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and dean of the State Department’s Leadership and Management School. When I retired from my three-decade career in the Foreign Service in 2020, I joined the faculty of the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. I was asked to apply for the slot as a Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy in part because of experience I had garnered in two stints as a fellow at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute. Pardee reserves several faculty positions for practitioners from Students study international relations theory, but they want to know how the diplomatic sausage is actually made, this retired FSO found. BY MARK C. STORELLA Still, I wondered what students would think of what a former diplomat had to offer. Practitioners in Demand Six years in, I am happy to report that diplomacy—and the experience former foreign affairs professionals can offer—is very much in demand among university students. Here are a few reasons why. First, students are intellectually curious about our professions. They study international relations theory but are also eager to know how the diplomatic sausage is actually made. In courses on international negotiation and health and humanitarian diplomacy, students are thrilled to hear how diplomats use the tools available to practitioners to build a coalition to advance a resolution in an international organization. They are wide-eyed about how an embassy is run, what diplomatic immunity means the worlds of diplomacy, development, intelligence, and security. No PhD required! The application involved assembling a dossier of résumés, publications, teaching experience, and the like. Pardee then invited me to campus to teach a class, play speed dating in short interviews with a dozen faculty and students, and give a “job talk” to the faculty, who then subjected me to an impromptu thesis defense. I loved all the scholars and students I met, and I was eager to move back to Boston, my hometown. So, when they made the offer, I jumped. Life After the Foreign Service
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