The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2005

notice means many students find themselves with several hours to kill on the first day of each new rotation. Furthermore, the fact that this keeps happening suggests that there are either systemic communication problems within the School of Language Studies or that the efficient use of time and the convenience of students are not the school’s top priorities — neither of which is exactly encouraging to students already apprehensive about attaining their target proficiency. Child care is another serious management issue at FSI. The day-care center closes at 4:30 p.m. every day, even though many classes go past that time — forcing parents to make special arrangements or leave class early. In response to complaints, FSI points out that lengthening the facility’s hours would increase costs for all customers. Time for outside help? Numerous respondents flat- ly asserted that FSI’s language program needs to consider some major reforms: contracting out some of the curricu- lumdevelopment, testing and teacher training work to aca- demic institutions or others with expertise; separating the testing from the teaching; and developing some universal standards on what language competencies are required. Other suggestions include pursuit of post-based lan- guage study. One FSO with experience in such a pro- gram, which was outside of FSI, points out that learning is faster “on site” and it is often cheaper to have someone study at post rather than on per diem in the D.C. area. As one USAID officer who went through Arabic train- ing says, the current set-up “amounts to a huge waste of time and money for the Foreign Service. If we add the cost of housing and salary of the students, this training amounts to a very expensive program. We should do it, no doubt about it. But we should do it much, much better.” The School of Professional Studies: Living Up to Its Name We did not receive many responses about FSI’s orien- tation program or the School of Professional and Area Studies tradecraft courses, but most of the comments were positive. One recent entrant did flag the problem of raised expectations for new generalists: “Throughout A-100, new FSOs are told we’re diplo- mats now. We have speech coaches and writing coaches and are sent to some excellent management training. We are given months of training in language and occupation- al skills, and told that most of us are going out to be man- agers.” Then the officers arrive at post, where they dis- cover “the visa mills where officers are expected to ‘effi- ciently’ process visas at the rate of 15-20 per hour — and during that three to four minutes per applicant, examine documents while conducting a conversation and checking through countless hits in the namecheck system. “The conflict between raised expectations and realities at post is causing ripples of discontent throughout the junior officer ranks as they discuss the situation in Web- based chat groups outside official channels. Many are describing themselves as the highest-paid factory workers in the world. When the second-tour bid list came out and most of us realized we hadn’t served our time but were expected to do another tour of visa interviews, many peo- ple began to rethink the decision to enter the Foreign Service.” ConGen Rosslyn. Still affectionately known by its original name even though it has moved to its new home, the classic consular course for new hires has changed in other ways, too. It is now six weeks long and includes site visits to other agencies. Based on the anecdotal evidence gathered in response to our request for input via AFSANET, it is one of FSI’s more popular offerings. A first-tour officer now in Mexico says: “The new facial-recognition segment was fascinating and very use- ful. The field trips to other agencies were informative, especially the visit with DHS inspectors at Dulles airport.” His only criticism was that “the [non-immigrant visa] sec- tion was near the end and only lasted a few days. Almost all of us were going to be doing extensive NIV work (that was 75 percent of my consular tour). … We did practice interviewing, but I would’ve liked more practice, especial- ly with the ‘gray area’ applicants (not easily refusable or issuable) that so many visa applicants here seem to be.” Another new hire notes, “Spanish training focused on preparing me to make short thematic presentations, when what I really needed as a consular officer headed for a visa mill was training in conducting interviews in Spanish. I didn’t learn the vocational vocabulary I need- ed in Spanish, and the ConGen practice interviews were in English, under optimum conditions — quiet back- ground, top-of-the-line amplification equipment, etc. What a shock when I got to the real world.” GSO Training. One new hire says the basic course’s nickname among teachers as well as students is “Death by PowerPoint,” and some of his colleagues describe the full course as “eight weeks of material crammed into 11 weeks.” Yet while he agrees it could be condensed, he F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 5