 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to one of your final sessions of the day. You have made it through countless hours of time in front of your computer screen. And so we're going to try to keep this one light and easy. I'm really excited that you're joining us for this session. Just a quick note that you might have seen in the agenda. This is a session particularly geared towards administrators and faculty at HBCUs. So students, you know, you're certainly welcome to stick around and use the information you glean to badger the folks on your campus about, you know, getting this kind of program brought to your school. But if you need to take a break from stare at the screen now is a good time, but I'm not letting you off the hook faculty and administrators we need you to stick around because we're going to tell you about some really exciting ways that the State Department is trying to engage underrepresented voices in foreign policy, both for students and for recent grads. So real quick, my name is Brian Gerhardt. I'm a senior partnership officer in the Office of Global Partnerships. With me here today are my incredible colleagues Tomas de Boss, who is the managing director for the Office of Global Partnerships, and Mike VC, who is a senior advisor for diplomatic fellowships at Howard University. So before we go too much further, just want to give you a quick overview of where we're going with this session. First, we're going to hear from Tomas will give you some insight about why we do what we do, why we want to work with you, why we want to engage more, you know, diverse voices in the work that we do. And then we're going to talk briefly about diplomacy lab, which is an incredible public private partnership that we're hoping you can help us bring to your campuses, so that your students can engage directly with foreign policy, while they're students. After a quick tease of the diplomacy lab partnership, I'm going to pass the mic to Michael VC, who's going to tell you more about how you can support students on your campus, who are interested in careers and foreign policy by guiding them through the application process, and more for the diplomatic fellowships that he oversees. So without further ado, I'm going to pass the mic to my good friend and colleague Tomas de Boss. Tomas, take it away. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Brian. Good afternoon to all of you for joining us virtually here today. I would love to spend this time with you all in person, but unfortunately we were not able to do that, but I appreciate this new format, this new virtual world that enables us to connect and all over the world to do this. And thank you so much for the incredible event organizers to make to making sure that we had this opportunity to connect today. I understand, as Brian mentioned, we are we are the last session of this this amazing conference, but I can guarantee you not the least one. It's a bit strange not to see your faces that most of this whole year, when you're doing these zoom calls you're seeing people who you're engaging with but in this case I cannot see you but I could fill your, your vibe through these through these lines and but throughout my my my conversation with you and my colleagues, my colleague Ashley and Archie is on the line if you have any questions anything that pops in your mind, please put it on the chat box and we'll have this conversation together. So before I go anything further, as Brian mentioned, my name is Thomas DeBuss, I am the managing director of the Office of Global Partnerships here at the US Department of State. The office, which is actually called the GP Office of Global Partnerships is essentially the entry point for the the promise sector to engage with with the with the department in in advancing our form policy. And when I say promise sector, it's it's not just when you think of promise sector people think of companies and corporations but we broadly define promise sector to be universities such as yours foundations, faith based groups, nonprofits, civil society groups, startups, you know, diaspora groups, you name it, anybody who's not a state, not a state that just we engage with them, an all aspect of our work. And frankly, Brian can attest is Brian and I have one of the best gigs at the Department of State. Not only because we get to work with brilliant and passionate civil service and foreign service officers all around the world. But we get to collaborate with all of these incredible talent that exists outside of our building in America and around the world. And we work across obviously sectors to advance our foreign policy goals, but not only building partnership tools and resources for the rest of the department. We also serve as a catalyst and resource for the promise sector to work with us quite efficiently and collaboratively in order to achieve our obviously our shared goals. In partnerships when you think about them, a lot of folks think it's just like bringing people together in a kumbaya and all that kind of feel good type of stuff. But the top of partnerships we're talking about are very incredibly meaningful collaborations that are there to not only advance America's agenda but also to advance the welfare and the shared values that we have around the world through our diplomatic needs and through our development partners. So if you're not utilizing the talent and the skill and the innovation that exists all around the world, you're not just limiting yourself but you're just not doing your job quite effectively. So the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. Along those lines, the Department of State and our office are working to cultivate relationships with a more diverse swat of domestic stakeholders to engage underrepresented voices in the work of foreign policy. We know that folks in this agency do not have all the answers and I can guarantee you if I'm one of them I do not have all the answers to all the problems that we face. But we are stronger at the Department of State when we incorporate the full range of American perspectives, voices in our work. And the Department, Secretary Blinken feels very strongly that we support not just racial equity both abroad and at home, but we have to increase the position that we have to ensure a diverse and inclusive diplomatic war. Secretary Blinken has said that diversity and inclusion make our diplomatic team stronger, smarter and more creative and more innovative. As President Biden has made it clear prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility is also a national security imperative. We recognize, especially during the Black History Month, that HBCU students are the next generation of diplomats, scientists, educators, startup founders, who are not only integral parts of the future of international relations, but it's actually its present too. There are many ways that students can engage with the Department of State once you have finished your studies, but I'm excited to tell you a little bit about in a way that you can engage with us, even currently when you are a student and for the faculty and administrators, how you can incorporate students into the form policy apparatus. And that's where Diplomacy Lab steps in. Diplomacy Lab is our public collaboration between the U.S. Department of State and more than about 40 U.S. universities that my office and quite specifically Brian actually manages. With Diplomacy Lab, we can tap into the vast intellectual, you know, well that we have in this country to what we call the core sourcing of research from teams around, teams of students and faculty and how they could be able to essentially bring their knowledge together to kind of address the kind of questions that myself and our colleagues around the world can post to them. We value the research that student teams provide that to the department just last week, last Friday, we hosted an event called demo days where these, the faculty and students, you know, demoed or presented their research and work to our colleagues around the world, which was kind of a meaningful way to see how these students and faculty are directly linked into the, what I call the supply and chain, the supply and demand of form policy questions with the kind of knowledge base that we have with universities. The Department of State does not only want to recruit one kind of employee, we're not just looking for folks who are stating political science or international nations, but we're looking for scientists, architects, engineers, you know, entrepreneurs, sociologists, I mean essentially entire gamut of disciplines to make sure that we are advancing America's leadership around the world, because America's leadership is not one-dimensional. It's all hands on deck. And we want students of all backgrounds, academic, geography, socioeconomic, the whole gamut. So to know that they can, they can have a future in diplomacy, because when I was a student, I never thought I would be sitting here and talking to you as a Department of State senior official. That was not a, that's not something that I imagined, but obviously I'm here now. And I hope your students on the other side, not only could not imagine it, but they can actually see it. So that's, that's what this diplomacy lab is about, not just about meaningful substance conversation we can have, but it's also to draw inspirations from it. So we've got a diverse network, but we're, one thing we lack is a representation from HPC use. And I'm quite ecstatic to have recently signed an MOU with Howard, which Michael VC was a colleague that was going to talk to you about who works there. And, and we have two more HPC partnerships that are we are processing right now and hopefully we could, we can announce them quite soon. But those of you who are on this call administrators and faculty who are not HPC you and the other two universities if you know who you are you know you are if you're not one of those. Please, please engage with us. We want to make sure that we can incorporate all HPC use as much as possible, because no two HPC use are not the same. It doesn't matter that there's a diversity in thoughts and diversity in geography, so we want to make sure we include all of you in that. So before I pass the microphone to my colleague Brian to tell you about more about the depth of diplomacy labs work. I also want to thank you for taking the time to learn about what other opportunities that are available for you to engage with our office we're not just a one hit wonder in terms of diplomacy lab. We have lots of lots of tracks and our album of amazing collaborations that we've done around the world so all of them you can, especially if you're engaged in entrepreneurship and climate change, and a vast area of form policy, you can engage with us so I want to make sure that diplomacy lab is not the only way you can get to to get to know us but there might be other areas we can collaborate if you have ideas please bring it to us. So I hope we will have the opportunity to work with you directly in the near future, but until then I'm going to pass my microphone to Brian, please take it from here be. Thank you so much Tomas. As Tomas hinted at diplomacy lab is an incredible opportunity for US based universities all around the country. You know we often talk about being elite but not elitist which means we have everything from community colleges to Ivy leagues public schools private schools trade schools, you name it. But what we're really trying to do now is make sure that our representation from HBC us is as robust as we know it can be so what I want to do real quick is give you a sense of what the program is. And then, after hearing from Mike will come back to me I'll walk you through some of the more in depth logistics about how it actually looks when it's institutionalized on a campus and what it takes to build the partnership between your university and the Department of State. But I'm going to go ahead and share my screen now. So we'll make sure you can see it. Let's see if that works. Are we all squared away there. All right, I'm going to take that silence as a yes. So diplomacy lab. What is it. How does it work. And a few other fun facts before we get into the into the weeds of it. So diplomacy lab was launched in 2013, but really started picking up steam when it came under the purview of the office global partnerships. So most of us you just heard from kind of saw this small program this fledgling partnership and said, we can go bigger we can go better we can we can incorporate more voices more students more academic disciplines, why limit it to a couple schools who are giving us straightforward foreign policy research when we can incorporate the entire country's, you know, academic reservoir. So, starting in about 2015 and 16, we really put the pedal the metal and started building out a partnership network that we now know is diplomacy lab. As Tomas noted, works by course sourcing research for the Department of State, and course sourcing, you know, is a fun way of saying that through the semester schedule that so many of you adhere to, we're able to build student teams that are faculty led to carry out research projects proposed by the Department of State under the guidance of the State Department officers who were asking for that research. So, this this partnership in essence is a collaboration where our partners at universities across the country get this real world experience for their students and faculty to be able to engage meaningfully with the work of foreign policy diplomacy and development and State Department gets incredible top tier research from a huge array of voices that it might not get if it was, you know, going through its normal channels. And so it's really a win win for both sides of the equation. You know, just diplomacy lab is designed primarily to address two priorities are determination to engage more Americans in the work of diplomacy, development and foreign policy, and the imperative to broaden the State Department's research base in a response to the proliferation of complex global challenges. That's a long way of saying that there are so many different things that the State Department does that we want, you know, expert insight that so that we can address them. And so last noted, we at the State Department don't just do one thing, we want to incorporate disciplines from across the academic spectrum, we want to make sure that scientists and architects and artists and entrepreneurs and creatives and sociologists everybody has a role in diplomacy and development and foreign policy should, should that excite them should that be something that they're interested in and exploring in their own career. So what we're trying to do through this program, along with getting great research for the department, along with, you know, engaging folks directly in foreign policy is exposing students of who might have no idea what the State Department is, what we do to the idea of how the, the passions they have the skills they've been developing the interest that they've cultivated, could play into this work. If that's something that they're that they're interested in. So really quickly, how does it work. We work on a semester based cycle. If you are on a quarter system fear not there's lots of flexibility. One of the main words you're going to hear me say over and over today is flexibility our program relies on this incredible collaboration. And there is no collaboration, as many of you know without flexibility to work together and serve each other's needs and interests. So what we do is every semester we go around the department to bureaus domestically here in DC to our posts all around the world. We say what do you need. What do you need research on what do you need help with. What would you be interested in working on with a group of students led by a faculty with expertise in your field. And so we get a whole range of project topics sometimes it's really straightforward. Hey, I need a white paper on 70 years of diplomatic relations between the United States. Sometimes it's, you know, way more forward thinking, say, hey, how can artificial intelligence be leveraged to help low resource countries accelerate the transition to green energy. Sometimes it's more product focus. Everything from hey I need to build out like a social media toolkit and some assets that we can use to celebrate this, this event that's happening at our embassy, or an example I love to point to is that, you know, not a lot of people know but the State Department actually has its own bureau dedicated to architecture, real estate, and the management of the, the, you know, thousands of buildings that it oversees globally. It's called overseas buildings operations, and they are regular dip lab clients in that they are constantly seeking out ways to work with architecture students and design students to to build out products like GIS maps of where future embassies can be built or design renderings of new embassy buildings. So it can be really product focused too. But what happens is every semester we collect all these projects, we distribute them to our approved university partners. And the faculty at these universities have the opportunity to bid on the projects that they want to work on. I'll get more into what bidding looks like, and how that process works in my, my return appearance. But for now just know that it's an opportunity to say hey I'm Professor so and so I'd love to work with a team of students on this project because of x y and z and here's how we carry it out. I'm an officer who proposed the project is the one who says yes I want to work with this this team. So you have that direct connection between the source of the project in the collaboration that's about to ensue. One thing I just want to highlight up front is that this is open to all levels of students this can be, you know, freshman who are just getting their feet wet on campus learning how to research for the first time. This can be a graduate students who you know are well on their way to publishing their own work who want to collaborate with state. And these projects can be incorporated in all kinds of ways into your campus's curriculum. Sometimes it's a project that a faculty member will say hey this fit great with this this course that I'm teaching I'd love to incorporate this as a focal point. Sometimes they'll say hey I want to do an independent study project and kind of spend some some time digging into this with students outside of the bounds of a normal course. Sometimes it's used for senior capstone projects. Recently we've been partnering with schools who are really putting a new focus on experiential learning for their students giving their students more opportunities to engage with real world issues. And so, you know, again, just as we're immensely flexible about the kinds of projects that State Department officers can propose for this program, immensely flexible in terms of how our partners can carry out this research with their students over the course of a semester. Like I said, I'm going to come back to some of the logistics soon. But the main thing I want to emphasize and I'm going to stop sharing my screen so you can actually see how excited I am about about that. Oh, thank you somebody did it for me I love it. This is high tech. I just want to say that, you know, one of the main things I'd love to highlight is that this is a great way to engage students who already know that they're interested in the work of foreign policy so they can get that real world research, so they can start making those connections with different, you know, departments and impenetrable entity. I'm not sure how many of you have ever had to dig into USA jobs. But boy, let me tell you from personal experience, it's a void. It can be so difficult to figure out where do I put my foot to get inside of this building. This is a great way for students to get that kind of real world experience but also this mentorship opportunity from State Department officers who, you know, can can thrive with the enthusiasm of students who are interested in it. This is also a great way for us to expose students who had no idea that what they were doing can play into our work. You know, I'm telling you my favorite thing I bring up OBO a lot that overseas buildings operations because it's so fun to have these students were all our future architects and designers realize, wait a second, there's a way to apply this this skill that I've been developing this and I have to to a cause that might be bigger than what I thought you know I could do so it's a really exciting way to meet the needs of both types of students on on your campuses. What I want to do now is pass the mic to my my my good friend and and both former and now current colleague Michael VC. He's a senior advisor for diplomatic fellowships at Howard University. And he's going to talk to you more about how you can support students who maybe they've gone through dip lab and say I want to do more what's my next step how do I get involved, or maybe they already know hey I want to get into the State Department but I don't know what to do next. So I'm going to pass the mic over to Michael VC now. Alright, thanks Brian. I'm going to shift gears just a little bit and talk about fellowship programs but I promise you that I will make the linkage between what dip lab does and and how it supports our fellowships. As Brian said, my name is Michael VC. I am the senior advisor for diplomatic fellowships at Howard University. I'm a more house alum. I, before I moved into this role, I spent 24 years in the Foreign Service, working in Mexico a few times South Africa a few times, Nigeria, Iraq, London, Australia, and Washington DC. After I retired a couple of years ago, moved over to Howard to specifically help the US Department of State and Minister it's to flagship for the fairs fellowships, the Thomas R Pickering for the first fellowship and the Charles B. International Affairs program. Incidentally, I should note that this year marks the 20th anniversary of the wrangle program. It marks the 30th anniversary of the Pickering program, and I was part of the first cohort of Pickering fellows back in 1992. So, so it's a it's a wonderful year for the State Department and for everyone who has supported the programs. So, how do the fellowships work with dip lab or or what can dip lab do to support the fellowships. One of the major and Brian has as mentioned this one of the objectives of dip lab is to introduce students to to what the State Department does what we do is for service officers and and hopefully that understanding peaks an interest in a possible career. So as students become interested in possibly serving as diplomats, they should come to us to the Pickering and Wrangler fellowships. We, we pay for grad school. We, you know, we have a wonderful mentoring program skills training, and at the end of all of that. You come in with a five year service commitment as a US diplomat, like myself, most for most bigger to wrangle fellows stay in long past that. Let me go ahead and talk a little bit of the specifics about the each program. Can we, can we share the PowerPoint. Thank you, Brian. Okay, so the two flagship fellowships for for students who maybe who are interested in careers in the foreign service. We're going to start with the wrangle program. The coffee wrangle international fairs program prepares individuals for careers in international fairs. What we specifically look for is, and our main mission is to, to support the department's diversity goals. We want to bring in us diplomats that represent the broad diversity of the United States. The, the, the program, as I mentioned, is administered by Howard to a cooperative agreement with the State Department. There are two main components of the wrangle program, the some of the summer enrichment program and the graduate fellowship. We're going to start with set the summer enrichment program first. And I must say I know that I'm talking to faculty and staff at HBC use, but hopefully some students stayed on because you know there's a lot of good information if, if you're considering any of these programs. So our summer enrichment program is specifically for undergraduates with at least 30 hours of, of course credit. So we're really looking at rising South Wars rising juniors for for for the summer program. The, the application deadline just passed for this year. So we're, we're at the beginning of our 2023 recruitment cycle or outreach cycle. The summer enrichment program provides undergraduate students with a deeper understanding of current issues a career opportunities and international and international affairs, we expose you to NGOs, the business community for the fairs that goes on the hill. And of course, you know, the Department of State. And the goal here is to enhance appreciation and knowledge of careers and international affairs. The program takes place in Howard for this summer. We do, in addition to a broad range of networking, we have academic courses seminars and professional skills training. And students who, who are part of the step, receive their tuition travel room and board from us and a stipend of $3200. The requirements and the eligibility requirements for set are the same as for the wrangle graduate fellowship, and for the pickering fellowship. So you'll hear me say this a couple of times, you have to be a US citizen. You have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2. And as I mentioned, you have to have at least southward status to apply. Applications usually open up in in around October, and in close in mid February so we just closed for the for summer 2022, but we're gearing up and preparing for the following year. All right. So let's move on to the Charles regal international affairs graduate fellowship. So the students that we're targeting here or the individuals that we're targeting here are are individuals who are preparing to go to graduate school or have plans on going to graduate school in in the fall of 2023. The 2023 cycle has not been announced yet. So much of this if all of this information follows the 2022 cycle. Basically what the Charles be regular international affairs graduate is that it prepares individuals for a foreign service career. Basically, if you win the fellowship, you're on a path toward a career as a US diplomat. The program awards up to $84,000 and I'll break this down a little bit later over a two year over two years for tuition for a master's program. And the master's program can has to be in a field that's relevant to the board service. When I say that it doesn't have to be a master's in international affairs, or security studies or, you know, or particular region, as many of our fellows do, you know, do seek. It's really broadened that language in terms of what's acceptable. So, you know, there are, if you're if you're looking at an MBA program that has an international focus, or masters and social work program that has a international focus, you know, those could very well qualify for for this award. You see, there's an orientation, the summer after they're selected 10 week now with regular program it's a 10 week internship on Capitol Hill for the first summer. And then the following summer it's a 10 week overseas internship in a US embassy or consulate. We provide mentors, and what we call peer mentors. So these are foreign service officers who will sort of guide you and or guide the fellows through, you know, not only the fellowship process, but hopefully they maintain those relationships into the program. And once a fellow completes their master's program, they go through security, clearances, medical clearances, suitability clearances, and once they complete all of the requirements, they come into the State Department as a US diplomat with a service requirement of five years. But as I said, I served 24 years, and most of us serve a full career in a foreign service. To move on to the fellowship award $84,000 over two years is broken up into $24,000 per year for tuition and mandatory fees and $18,000 for living for a living stipend during the academic year. We just know that we have outstanding graduate school partners, and many of the graduate school partners that we have relationships with, find ways to fill any gaps that are left. So most of our fellows end up receiving their master's debt free. I should also mention that it's okay. I should also mention that with the summer internships, those are paid up to $11,000 per year for those two internships. Now we can move on. So the timeline, as I said, the 2023 cycle has not been announced yet, but it probably will be sometime around July. So there's going to be, usually there's an open application period between July and September. So the application deadline is normally the end of September, near to the end of September. We select 90 finalists by November, by early November, and in late November, we have our interviews. They may not be virtual next year. They may, depending on what happens in the world. And after those virtual interviews, or after those interviews, we make notifications of award. So that usually comes late November, early December. And again, like CEP, the Algebra requirements, US citizenship, 3.2 GPA. And as I mentioned earlier, planning to enroll in a graduate program of relevance to the Foreign Service. Now let's talk about the Thomas R. Pickley Foreign Affairs Fellowship Program, the program that I came under. So very similar to the RANGO program in terms of the award. I will point out the key difference. There's one real key, well, there are a couple real key differences. Again, it's a $42,000 a year award for a two year graduate program, same goals applied. There will be an orientation for the new fellows. Now here's a key difference between Pickley and RANGO. With the Pickley program, it's a 10 week internship at the State Department. Remember, RANGO is on Capitol Hill. For Pickley, it's a 10 week internship at the State Department of Washington, DC. And that happens a year later than the RANGO program. So in between the first and second year of graduate school, you'll have that first internship. The second internship, 10 week internship is overseas at a U.S. consulate or embassy. So that will follow after a student finishes their graduate program. They'll immediately have that second internship. Now they've already finished grad school. They've already had their two internships. So a couple of months after that, they'll enter what we call a 100 orientation class to start their foreign service career. And like RANGO, they will have both a mentor and peer mentor working with them through the fellowship and hopefully they maintain those ties into the foreign service. In terms of clearances and requirements, those are the same. Once a fellow meets all of their requirements and finishes their master's program, they will have a five year service obligation. And again, hopefully stay in for a career. So very similar to the RANGO program, the $24,000 per year award broken down for tuition, $18,000 for a living stipend, and then the $11,000 per year for their summer internships. We can go ahead and move on. All right. I've spoken several times about the eligibility requirements. And again, with all of them, 3.2 GPA, U.S. citizenship, and in the case of the graduate fellowship, seeking to enroll in a master's program of relevance to the foreign service. So what we've been through the timeline, we could go ahead and skip this because I want to get some time to go back to Brian. So what I need from you faculty and staff, as you're talking about DIP Lab and hopefully partnering with DIP Lab, we're building an interest in careers in the foreign service. Certainly reach out to the programs, the RANGO program and the Pickering program, and here's our information, email, and our websites. Reach out to us. We can help you build the type of relationships with your students, and we can help you gear them toward opportunities in international affairs, specifically with the State Department. I am available. Our staff is available for virtual info sessions. We're available for in-person info sessions. Let us know and we can help with this process and thank you, thank you for tuning in. All right. So I think I'm going to take back over. Thank you so much for that, Michael. I really appreciate all that detail. As Tomas said, it's super weird not being able to see you on the other end, but I can tell you're on the edge of your seat. You're just saying, please, I got to know more about DIP Lab. I have to know how I could bring this program to my campus. Fear not. We're about to get into it real quick. I'm going to pull up the slideshow one more time because I think it's neat to see a little bit more about the program, but then I'm going to pull it back and just talk to you so we can engage human to human on what we've got going. Before we go any further, I want to offer a huge, huge thank you to the ASL interpreters on the line today. They are incredible. I am never more amazed with anybody than with my colleagues who do this work. So thank you so much for being here today and making this happen. So I am going to go one more time into full screen mode on my presentation here. And let's go share screen. You know, I never thought I would say the words share screen so many times in my whole life, but 2020 happened that it's, you know, a daily part of the lexicon. Just a quick review again, how this program works. GP, that's us in the middle. We're going to collect research topics from all over the world. This is not just bureaus in DC. These are posts globally. This is everyone who's involved across an enterprise of more than 75,000 employees. GP, you know, we're a small but mighty team, but we got connections man and we're connected all across the department to bring you and your students a really exciting menu. We call it a project menu that we distribute to a diplomacy lab coordinator at your university. So let's say you establish this partnership, which we'll get into in just a moment. What you're going to do is have someone on campus who acts as the diplomacy lab coordinator. This will be my colleague at the university, whose main role is to get the word out about the program, collect bids from faculty who are interested in participating in this program. I bring up this role because it's pretty instrumental and it's important to think about when you are figuring out, hey, what might it look like to bring diplomacy lab to our campus. Sometimes this might be housed within an individual academic department, but sometimes this can be in a more broad office like, you know, perhaps the study abroad office or an experiential learning office, an office of student engagement. Those kinds of places where they'll have a reach across the university because again as you've heard me say already and you'll hear me say again, this is really as much about exposing students to the work of diplomacy and development as it is about engaging the ones who already know that's the path they want to get on. So again, we're going to collaborate. We're essentially GP myself. I'm going to be a puppet master just trying to connect dots between your faculty and our State Department officers worldwide. Currently, we have 46 university partners from 27 states and the District of Columbia. Those project menus that I mentioned, they range from 80 to 110 proposals each semester cycle. So if you do the math, we got way more projects than we have partners. We are always looking for new partners because the more partners we have in this program, the more challenges we can help our colleagues across the world. The State Department address through this research. So every semester, you're going to see 80 to 100 projects for your faculty to select from. It's almost an overwhelming number. I apologize in advance for when you get that big fat PDF of all these topics, but it's really exciting to see the breadth of work that's carried out by the department that you can bring to your students. And again, over to 450 projects have been undertaken over the past five years in this program, you know, where I think we're about to hit the 500 mark. This is incredible, incredibly prolific partnership that we've established. Again, I've mentioned these kinds of, you know, a variety of topics. Just last semester, we had projects on the effect of COVID-19 on the international airline travel industry, taking a gender lens to environmental issues, emerging technology and human rights overseas coverage of US racial incidents, using AI to accelerate transition to green energy GIS site selection site analysis. And this is just a quick sample to show how varied the types of projects are. I want to show you this map because right now we are, you know, we are representing this country. Well, we are, we are reaching out, you know, across state lines. This is not just one of those, you know, DC corridor types of programs where, you know, I love our DC partners, but I'm always really excited when we get those partners in a state, or in a location where the students don't have that regular access to federal agencies to be able to engage with them directly. So especially we want wherever you're coming from, we want you, but if you see your state represented and it's white right now, we got to get that thing turned blue. We really want you to apply. But again, we are, we are so enthusiastic about bringing on new partners that, you know, wherever you're from, we are excited to have you. I'm going to go more into detail about what the application process looks like. But I'm actually going to skip this slide. And I just want you to kind of like internalize this, write it down, type it up, whatever you've got to do. Diplomacylab.org, it's kind of a living one pager, you can you can go check it out, learn more, see examples of past projects, apply, all that good stuff. But the other thing I really want you to do is write down my email address, gairheartbratstate.gov, write it down. And as soon as you're you have a moment to breathe, you know, on Monday morning, shoot me an email, because I would love to speak with you about this program and what it'll take to bring it to your campus. So I want to do the rest of this presentation. Just speaking with you directly. There's a lot of text on screen I realized. But what I want to tell you about real quick is, you know, what the partnership process actually looks like. Mike talked a lot about money and how awesome these opportunities are for students to get provided funding for their studies and things like that. The only money related to Diplomacylab is a big old zero. I know that that for a lot of universities there is a constant need to seek out new funding revenues and grants opportunities, all that good stuff. But the exciting thing about this partnership is that it is a true partnership. It is a direct exchange of service and experience that comes at no cost to your university whatsoever. So, you know, the only thing that we ask you to do is, you know, spend the time. It's an additional experience that you're creating for your students. We know that that means it's additional work for you. We know that this is something you're taking on on top of your regular job. Our Diplomacylab coordinators are incredible, but not a one is getting paid by their university just because they want them to do this program. This is on top of their other work that they're doing. So, we realize that, you know, sometimes without, you know, funding opportunity tied directly to something like this, it can be a non-start. But I just really want you to consider, you know, the exponential power of exposing students directly to this kind of work. Whether or not they choose to go on and apply for one of the Pickering and Rangel fellowships or apply for an internship at State, they have now had, you know, a really high level experience that they'll carry with them, you know, throughout whatever career they find. You know, as Tomas has noted, we work across the entire private sector for our partners. You don't have to work at the State Department to be involved in this kind of work. But, you know, no matter what, this experience is really powerful for the students who participate. And so, in terms of partnership, you're going to go to www.diplomacylab.org. You know, but first thing you might want to do, email me. Let's talk, let's get into it. Let's learn a little bit about what your university is like, what you're interested in, what you think it might look like on the campus. But if you've heard enough of me talking, you're tired of me and you just wanted to get straight to the point, you go to www.diplomacylab.org. You're going to be very surprised at how simple this application really is. This is not a grant application. This is not something you find on grants.gov or challenges.gov. It's a Google form. It's a really deceivingly simple application. What we're trying to get out of that application, which is relatively intuitive, but, you know, at any point, if you're looking through it, again, I just, I hope you can memorize my email address by the end of this. Gerhard br at state.gov. You can ask me any question anytime. But what this application is really about is helping us to better understand what kind of university you are, what kinds of experiences you're already providing for your students, and what kinds of experiences you're hoping to provide for your students. Give us a sense of what makes your university unique, whether it's what kind of student body or what kinds of programs you feel particularly proud of, what kinds of programs you're trying to develop further. Give us a sense of who you are and why you could be a unique addition to our cohort, which is ever growing and really exciting to see the different types of university. There are no two schools and you all know this. There are no two schools that are the same. And so just tell us a little bit more about yourself. Give us a sense of how you might bring this program to your campus. You don't have to know all the answers up front. A lot of that is something that you and I are going to figure out together. The best way to support your students and faculty who are interested in participating in this kind of program. So you don't have to know all the answers. We just want you to tell us a little bit about yourself. Twice a year, what we're going to do is go through review these applications and try to determine, okay, these are the schools that we think we should bring on board right now to this program. We're going to do our next round of onboarding and review in about mid to late March. So please, if you're on this call now and you think this is something you're interested in, it would really behoove you to submit an application sooner rather than later. Again, don't got to know all the answers. Just go ahead and submit and we can take it from there because otherwise we'll be waiting till the fall semester, but you know, if that's if the pace we want to go, that's fine too. But what we do is once we review these applications, we're going to submit a due diligence request. This is a standard part of partnership procedure we're trying to do is make sure that we can learn as much about you as possible. And yeah, that means digging out all the skeletons in the closet, trying to find out, you know, who's lobbying who and what lawsuits have taken place and news stories. But fear not, we recognize that every university of this scope is going to have stuff about it that we're going to dig up. And again, we're just trying to make sure that this partnership makes sense for the department as much as it makes sense for your campus. So once we've got that review in place, we'll go around the building. I'll save you the bureaucratic talk. But what I will say is that I know now having worked with universities for the past couple years that I thought we had a monopoly on bureaucracy in the federal government. I was wrong. I know that you guys have the same pains and red tape that you have to get through. So we are very simple to go on understanding the the kinds of processes that need to take place to bring something like this to life. But what we're going to do is we're going to seek approval for your partnership and once we have that approval from the higher ups at state, we're going to sign an MOU with the university. This memorandum of understanding is templated. So you don't need to do any work to figure out how to develop it and put the language together. We've done all that for you. We just need you to have somebody who's high enough, high up enough at the university. This could be a university president, a provost, a dean, somebody like that, who can sign this agreement with the department of state that essentially acts as a paper handshake between our two parties. This is a non legally binding document. It's something that you shouldn't be scared of. It's just our way of understanding how we're going to work together moving forward. We have that MOU available. Again, if you want to reach out to me happy to show it to you so you can start socializing it with whoever needs to see it to give them a sense of what they're getting into. But I realize now I've talked about all the boring stuff. We can get more into that once you reach out to me or once you apply at diplomacy lab.org slash. I want to emphasize before we jump over to question and answer because I realize we have all been talking a lot and are almost at the end of our session. I just want to emphasize that this is one of those programs that just continues to grow and evolve based entirely on the positive experiences of everybody involved. This is a program that's grown strictly by word of mouth, both at the State Department side, folks who oversee a project and are working with these students over the course of a semester, tell their colleagues, hey, not only are you going to get great research, you're going to gain opportunities. And again, the enthusiasm of working with a student team is contagious. It makes people's day to day job. All of a sudden you've got a group of students who are really passionate about learning more about it. It's something that people want to engage in. So it keeps growing on the State Department side. It keeps growing on our university side as as again more and more universities are trying to provide these kind of real world experiences for their students. But again, also a great opportunity to give students and faculty opportunities to develop research that they own and can publish. And the idea that maybe they're doing research that might end up helping somebody with a foreign policy program at State Department or that they can use to publish on their own. We don't own the research that you do. This is a collaboration between the two parties. And so, you know, just a great thing to keep in mind is that this experience will, it can lead to more experiences for your students and faculty. So again, I see we have about five minutes left, and it doesn't look like there are any questions in the chat. I'm going to give everybody a quick second to maybe drop those in. But if there's no questions, what I'm assuming is that we have just blown your minds you are completely speechless you're thinking I just got to get over to diplomacy lab.org right now and start filling out my application. But, you know, I really want to thank you for taking the time to learn about this. As Tomas mentioned up front. You know, yes, your students are the next generation of foreign policy leaders and professionals, but they're also the current generation, you know, of folks whose voices need to be incorporated in the work that we do. In the way that we present ourselves on a global stage, you know, we just want to make sure that for any opportunity that's available at state. We are, you know, making sure that those opportunities reach far and wide. And so, you know, I really, really hope that this is something that you are interested in and bringing to your campus and in providing to your students and faculty. We can get more into what bidding looks like, you know, on a future call all that good stuff. But, oh, it looks like we've got. Okay, interested in bringing the dip lab to Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland love to hear it interested in bringing a dip lab to Fort Valley State University and Fort Valley, Georgia love to hear that too. Both of you, please. I hope you wrote down my email address Gerhard br at state.gov I'd love to speak with you. And I don't want to sign my cup for any additional work, but he and I have been working in tandem to make sure that HBC use are not only aware but well equipped to take advantage of the opportunities that exists for for your campus. I know that both he and I would be happy to speak with you at any time about this program or about the fellowships that he described in detail earlier. Before we close out. I want to give another huge thank you to the HBC you foreign policy conference organizers who, you know, I love this event in person. And I really feel like I've made it to the big time because I used to be staying at the door with flyers and table just begging people to listen to me and and now here we are on the big stage. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you to the organizers for everything you did to make this so seamless to my colleague Ashley Archie who was moderating the chat to those ASL interpreters. So thank you to Tomas de Boss who I believe jumped off but again, he's the partnerships guy at state if you have something outside of dip lab that you want to talk to us about shooting an email we'll get a time to speak with Tomas about how that collaboration might look. I want to throw it over to Mike VC one more time. Just to see if he's got any closing words for us. Just a quick closing word. I mean the goal here is to build a partnership with all of you to build HBC you pipelines of students who will become outstanding foreign policy professionals. And that's the whole goal and with dip lab, you know, they are, you know, learning about what the State Department does, and more, you know, just as important, they are building their resume to apply for ultra competitive fellowship. So our Thomas Pickering and Charles Rangel fellowships are very competitive and having been a part of dip lab just builds that resume and make sure that we're getting those HBC you just a quick shout the Fort Valley State. I am based in Atlanta. So if you're in this Fort Valley or any school in the South, I'll be happy to sit down with you in person. So thanks a lot, Brian. This was a pleasure. Yeah, thank you again to everyone for tuning in. I hope you enjoy your three day weekend. And I hope to speak with you soon. Have a great one. Hello, everyone. I am Ambassador Gina Abercrombie when Stanley, the State Department's first standalone chief diversity and inclusion officer. Before I share my thoughts on why it's so important to diversify our diplomatic core, I first want to thank the organizers of this year's conference. This is the 13th HBCU annual form policy conference, and it is one of the State Department's most important outreach events of the year. It is an honor to be with all of you today. As you've heard throughout the program, we are eager to recruit HBCU graduates to join the State Department as both foreign and civil service officers. We need your talent, your excellence, and the diverse lived experiences that you bring to the table. Secretary Blinken has said repeatedly, America's diversity is our greatest national security asset, and I couldn't agree more. As we navigate the challenges of the 21st century, a once in a generation pandemic, erosions to democracy here at home and abroad, and a climate crisis that threatens our collective security, we need all hands on deck. This means creating a State Department that reflects the rich diversity of our nation. A more inclusive workforce will ensure our foreign policy is stronger, smarter, and more effective. Throughout my career, I've had a motto that guides my work. It's divided into three parts. Intentionality, Transparency, and Accountability. The first is intentionality. We need to understand the importance of DEIA and then pursue it in everything we do. It means asking with intention who is at the table, and more importantly, who is not, and is the table accessible to all? In June of last year, President Biden underscored the importance of DEIA by issuing a White House executive order calling on all federal agencies to develop multi-year action plans that advance equity, inclusion, and accessibility in concrete ways. The Department's strategic plan is being finalized now and will be released in March. This bold blueprint will lay the groundwork to build a State Department that not only recruits but works to retain diverse talent so that everyone has an equal chance of success, no matter who you are or where you come from. The second pillar is transparency. And the foundation of our transparency efforts at the State Department is grounded in data. And by data, I mean disaggregated data. One of the first actions I took on when my office was established was to launch a DEIA data working group. We recently developed a workforce demographic baseline report, which will be updated annually and allow us to measure our future progress. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it is accountability. Accountability is the heart and soul of DEIA work. It means building a culture of courage and allyship, where we speak truth to power and lift one another up. Many of you may have seen that earlier this month we honored Ambassador Terrence Todman. For those who don't know his story, in 1957, when Ambassador Todman was just starting his career in the Foreign Service, he noticed something was not right. As a black diplomat, he could not eat in public due to segregation laws in Virginia. Rather than stay silent, he spoke up, and his principal dissent and courage in the face of injustice led to the department integrating our dining facilities. Ambassador Todman went on to become a six-time ambassador, the second highest number of ambassadorial appointments in the State Department's history. To my State Department colleagues watching here in D.C. and around the world, my call to action is to you specifically. There are various HBCU graduates staffed within your bureau, and we want to keep them motivated, engaged, and empowered to go the distance in our organization. I encourage you to coordinate with fellow HBCU alumni to engage your alma maters, as well as employee affinity groups such as Blackson Government and the Thursday Luncheon Group. These organizations are in place to support the advancement and development of our colleagues from African American and Black communities. I hope you enjoyed this year's programming, and hang on a bit longer to join us during the after-hours session, from the yard to the embassy, featuring diplomats who leverage their student leadership skills as public servants. Stay safe and enjoy the remainder of your day.