The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2012

18 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 1 2 Most respondents to a survey the American Foreign Service As- sociation sent to its active-duty State Department members this spring echoed Brown’s senti- ments. Stuart Denyer, who en- tered the Foreign Service in 2009, recently completed a 30-week course in French to prepare for his assignment as a public affairs officer in Djibouti. He says his in- structors were stellar. Class sizes were typically just three or four, and teachers went the extra mile to ensure the students learned the material. “They make every effort to see that we succeed,” he says. “Testing can be intimidating and feel like a hostile environment, but everyone has our best interests in mind. They’ve added additional conversation tables throughout the day, so we have opportunities to be continually speak- ing. The teachers are creative, and they use new tech- nology to improve the course.” Denyer found the language training tailored to the needs of the officer in the field. “It’s less on how to be a tourist and order food and more on immigration and the death penalty and who’s going to win the next election,” he says. Many other recent entrants responding to the AFSA survey also expressed positive views of FSI. Tim Lamb, a new security engineering officer, says the course he took on overseeing federal contracts put him in a good posi- tion to step up when he is sent abroad. “It seemed really professional,” he says. “They weren’t just looking to check a box. The instructor was a retired Air Force colonel who did 25 years managing contracts. He had a wealth of ex- perience and all kinds of good examples.” Lisa Swenarski de Herrera, a cultural affairs officer in Quito, now on her fourth overseas assignment in 10 years, says that the classroom training has been excellent over- all, apart from some variation in the quality of her teach- ers. She also praises the department for now requiring officers to take management and leadership training. The courses in those areas are strong, in her experience. “They contain a good balance of theory and practical ex- ercises and real-life anecdotes.” Like most personnel at State, her biggest concern is that she hasn’t received enough education. “The issue is not whether the department offers quality training or not — it does. The issue is that officers are not being granted the time to get the training. The way the transfer cycle is set up, the receiving post is too often desper- ate to fill a position and training is sacrificed.” But FSI Director Ruth White- side sees evidence that the atti- tudes of supervisors about training are changing. “We have seen a se- rious change in bureaus’ willing- ness to let people go to training,” she says, noting that the shift is reflected in the numbers. Over the last seven years, the number of enrollments at FSI is up by a third. FSI’s annual customer survey indi- cates that many new enrollees are coming there because their supervisors recommended it. AFSA officials say they’ve noticed the difference, as well. Daniel Hirsch, AFSA’s State Department vice pres- ident, says that the department has been more rigorous about insisting that employees get their training, even when posts want them to arrive earlier. Hirsch praises Whiteside as one of the most knowl- edgeable people at the department in determining what a Foreign Service employee should know to advance his or her career, and says she’s surrounded herself with good people. “She has a good staff, quite a creative staff, and they are clearly thinking about the right things.” The department is also doing more to integrate train- ing into professional development, as AFSA has long ar- gued it should. For instance, it conducted comprehensive job analyses in 2007 and 2009 that FSI has used to shape training offerings. However, AFSA has not been wholly satisfied in this area, arguing that in some career tracks, such as Office Management Specialists, training require- ments have actually been curtailed. Again, Hirsch says, this is likely a problem stemming from a lack of resources. Some plans are being scaled back because “the department doesn’t feel it can meet some of the training goals.” Interpreting the GAO Report Some on Capitol Hill recognize this. Sen. Daniel Akaka, the Hawaii Democrat who commissioned the 2011 Government Accountability Office study Coburn cites, says that its key finding — that State Department training needs better quality controls — indicates a need for more funding, not less. F OCUS Professional education must go beyond training FS employees for their next assignment to preparing them for a career in government.