The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

26 NOVEMBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL address some of the world’s biggest and most complex problems. A few months after my arrival in Australia, the U.S. ambassa- dor hosted a welcome reception for all American Fulbrighters in Canberra. This was the first time I had ever entered an Ameri- can embassy, and the first time I had interacted with American diplomats. Throughout my year, I was in awe as I learned about the range of topics on which our two countries collaborate. So while I pursued my dream of becoming an expert environmen- tal scientist, I found myself increasingly intrigued by the idea of building a “bridge of knowledge.” This was a way to embrace my scientific background while also crossing into policy analysis and development in international affairs, with the ultimate goal of preparing myself to join the For- eign Service. The Fulbright Program strongly influenced my deci- sion to pick public diplomacy as my cone. I hope to advance the State Department’s educational and cultural exchange programs, and to contribute to environmental preservation and climate change awareness through public outreach initiatives. Marvin Alfaro is a first-tour public diplomacy-coned officer currently serving in a consular position in Santo Domingo. His next tour will be in Melbourne. T E H R A N & C A I R O , 1 9 7 7 – 1 9 8 0 M A R T I N Q U I N N H ad it not been for an extended Fulbright experience in Iran and Egypt, I would never have joined the U.S. Foreign Service. It was not until my early 30s—when I received a Fulbright lectureship in American civilization (1977- 1980)—that I began to think of the Foreign Service as a career. The program profoundly furthered my late-blooming interest in the Middle East, and the Foreign Service was the logical, practi- cal way to pursue that passion. My first Fulbright year was spent at Tehran University, an activ- ist campus, in the fluid situation that would soon spark the Iranian Revolution. During my second year, 1978-1979, the country began lurching through the dramatic stages of a massive internal upheaval that would have far-reaching implications. Teaching and anything resembling normality became less and less feasible as the atmosphere turned more heated, xenophobic and anti-Amer- ican. In late 1978, when it appeared Iranian universities would close for an extended “revolutionary holiday,” I was offered the choice of returning to Pennsylvanie State University or transfer- ring the Fulbright grant to Korea or Egypt. I chose Egypt. Fleeing an Islamic revolution, I wound up a midyear guest lecturer at an Islamic seminary, the oldest, continuously operat- ing institution of higher education in the Muslim world, Egypt’s renowned Al Azhar University (established in 969 A.D.). Egypt was in the post-Camp David period, when Americans were popular and Egyptians hoped for better days following the con- clusion of a decades-old conflict with Israel. My Egyptian, Leba- nese, Palestinian, Sudanese, Maldivian, Albanian and Yugoslav students became my teachers, and I stayed a third year on the Fulbright in Cairo. In May 1983, I entered the Foreign Service as a junior officer trainee with the U.S. Information Agency. But I remained involved with Fulbrighters through post-run programs in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, serving as a Fulbright Commission board member in Israel and Turkey. Dur- ing my first stateside tour of duty (1995-1999), I became branch chief for academic exchanges in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, with oversight of eight Fulbright Commissions. And two years after retiring from the Foreign Service in 2011, I was privileged to spend six months as acting deputy executive director of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board staff. My Fulbright experience affected my life in ways that, even now, I have not fully absorbed. As an FSO for 28 years, serving mainly in the Middle East, I Shah Mosque in Isfahan, shown here, was renamed Imam Mosque after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Martin Quinn spent his first Fulbright year at Tehran University, but transferred to Egypt in late 1978 when it appeared that Iranian universities would close. COURTESYOFMARTINQUINN