The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2018 13 Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan speaking at the NDU Hall of Fame induction ceremony for Ambassadors Joyce Barr and Bill Brownfield. Seated, from left to right, are Ambassadors Barr and Brownfield and NDU President Vice Admiral Fritz Roegge, USN. We are privileged to be entrusted with the exceptional professionals State and USAID send to NDU. While I’m confident that every one of them takes from NDU the benefits of a rigorous academic expe- rience, I would like to highlight instead what they give to us. They bring to each discussion a diversity of experience and perspective that exposes us all to a wide range of viewpoints and provides an increased awareness of the uses of all the instruments of national power. Even for those assigned here as students, the reality is that each of them also serves as a teacher to their fellow students and to the faculty. This diver- sity of thought is important not only in the classroom, but also in real-world operations—because the ways in which the United States and our partners work together to improve security are joint, interagency and international. NDU’s five colleges each deliver a unique master’s degree, joint professional military education or graduate certificates to about 2,000 students annually. Deliver- ing those academic outcomes is by itself an ambitious goal, but in the new National Defense Strategy Secretary James Mattis tasked DOD to do more—namely, to use education as a strategic asset to build trust and interoperability across the Joint Forces and with allied and partner forces. A broad demographic helps us to do so. While half of our students serve in the various branches and components of the U.S. military, the other half is comprised of civilians from across government and international fellows from allied and partner nations. Among the civilians, the largest cohort—nearly 10 percent of all students—comes from the State Depart- ment and USAID. After graduation, they will join an extensive network of national security pro- fessionals that includes not only U.S. but international alumni, who now number more than 3,700 from 142 countries. Even more impres- sive is the quality within this quantity. Because we are entrusted with our partners’ best and brightest rising lead- ers, our international alumni have gone on to do great things for their own nations. In fact, more than 100 have risen to the top echelon in their field, such as minister of defense, chief of service or ambassador, making this network powerful as well as extensive—a network that can help us to address the world’s challenging security problems. New Initiatives In my introductory meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan we agreed that the partnership between State and NDU was of great mutual ben- efit, and we vowed to further strengthen the ties between our institutions. One of the first new initiatives to be pursued was to have State participate in the NDU Scholars program. Just as has previously been done with the combatant commanders, State will suggest some of the wicked problems that could benefit from a fresh perspec- tive. NDU students can then adopt one of these problems for their thesis work and propose strategies for a way forward. This is a win/win: incorporating real-world problems into the curriculum makes the educational experience even more relevant and meaningful, and the results can be useful for policymakers as they can consider new insights and innovative recommendations. To implement this program and to further strengthen our teaching team, the State Department is providing additional faculty for the next academic year—seasoned practitioners who offer firsthand experience on the value of diplomacy and development work. Another expansion of an existing prac- tice resulted in NDU’s inaugural “Foreign Affairs Day” in May. Military organizations routinely celebrate the contributions of their constituencies, such as each October when the birthdays of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps are commemorated. This year, on May 9, NDU recognized our diplomats’ service with a birthday celebration and also inducted two For- eign Service NDU alumni into the NDU National Hall of Fame: Ambassador Joyce Barr, ICAF/Eisenhower Class of 2001; and Career Ambassador William R. Brown- field, National War College Class of 1993. Deputy Secretary Sullivan delivered the keynote remarks, in which he recog- nized that “NDU plays an important role, not just in shaping the leadership of our armed forces, but also in molding our NDU/KATIEPERSONSLEWIS