School of international affairs at Georgetown University From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It grants degrees at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
| |
| Type | Private nonprofit school of international relations |
|---|---|
| Established | 1919[1] |
| Founder | Edmund A. Walsh |
Parent institution | Georgetown University |
Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic (Jesuit) |
Academic affiliations | APSIA |
| Dean | Joel Hellman |
Academic staff | 134 (main campus) |
| Students | 2,273[1] |
| Undergraduates | 1,423[1] |
| Postgraduates | 850[1] |
| Location | , , U.S. 38°54′32″N 77°4′25″W |
| Campus | Urban |
| Website | sfs |
Founded in 1919, SFS is the oldest continuously operating school for international affairs in the United States,[2][3] predating the U.S. Foreign Service by six years. The school has routinely ranked as the best, or among the best, of the world's international relations schools.[4][5][6] Many of its graduates have assumed prominent roles in American and international politics,[7] as well as in journalism, finance and business.[8][9][10]
SFS was established by Edmund A. Walsh with the goal of preparing Americans for various international professions in the wake of expanding U.S. involvement in world affairs after World War I. Today, the school hosts a student body of approximately 2,250 from over 100 nations each year. It offers an undergraduate program based in the liberal arts, which leads to the Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS) degree, as well as eight interdisciplinary graduate programs.[1]
Based in Washington, D.C., the school also maintains campuses in Doha, Qatar, and Jakarta, Indonesia. SFS is a founding member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a consortium of the world's leading public policy, public administration, and international affairs schools.[11]
With the help of Georgetown University president Fr. John B. Creeden, S.J., Fr. Walsh spearheaded the founding of the School of Foreign Service and its establishment was announced on November 25, 1919.[2][3] The school's use of the name “Foreign Service” preceded the formal establishment of the U.S. Foreign Service by six years. The school was envisioned by Fr. Walsh to prepare students for all major forms of foreign representation from commercial, financial, consular to diplomatic.[12]
In 1921, it graduated its first class of Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS) undergraduate students.[13] The following year, the school began to offer the first international relations graduate program in the United States, the Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS).[14][15]
In August 1932, the SFS was moved to the Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark.[16] In 1958, two years after the death of Fr. Walsh, the school was renamed after him[17] and moved to the Walsh Building in a ceremony dedicated by President Eisenhower in honor of Fr. Walsh.[18]
In 1936, the SFS Division of Business and Public Administration launched the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) degree. In 1957, under the leadership of Fr. Joseph Sebes, S.J, the division was spun off from the SFS, becoming the School of Business Administration — later renamed McDonough School of Business in honor of Robert Emmett McDonough (SFS'49).[19]
In 1962, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was founded at Georgetown University as a think tank to conduct policy studies and strategic analyses of political, economic and security issues throughout the world.[20] When Henry Kissinger retired from his position as U.S. Secretary of State in 1977, he declined offers of professorship from Harvard, Yale, Penn, Columbia, and Oxford, and decided to teach at Georgetown SFS instead, making CSIS the base for his Washington operations.[21][22][23] In 1986, the university's board of directors voted to sever all ties with CSIS.[24]
Since 1982, the school has been housed in the Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Intercultural Center (ICC) on Georgetown's main campus.[25][26] In 1989, the Salaam Intercultural Resource Center, which is located on the top floor of the ICC, was opened in a ceremony presided by President Jimmy Carter. The center is a gift by Hany M. Sala'am and has housed the school's MSFS program since 1989.[27]
In 1978, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) was founded to bring together diplomats, practitioners and scholars to study diplomatic statecraft theory and practice.[28] Past ISD fellows include Georgian deputy prime minister Giorgi Baramidze[8] and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.[29] From 1975 until 2016, the ISD also awarded the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting to journalists in recognition of their distinguished reporting on foreign policy and diplomacy.[30][31]
In 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the SFS launched the Pew Economic Freedom Fellows Program to train future leaders of transitional states from Eastern Europe and post-Soviet countries. Notable fellows include Latvian finance minister Uldis Osis, Kazhastan deputy prime minister Kairat Kelimbetov, and Lithuania president Dalia Grybauskaite, who was later awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Georgetown University in 2013.[32]
In 1995, the Security Studies Program (SSP), which was founded in 1977 as the National Security Studies Program (NSSP) and hosted at the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters in the Pentagon, was moved to Georgetown's main campus and incorporated into the SFS.[33]
In 2002, the school studied the feasibility of opening a campus in Qatar Foundation's Education City in Doha, Qatar. In 2005, the School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) was officially opened and welcomed its first class of undergraduate students.[34] In 2015, the school was renamed to Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) as it broadened its remit to include executive masters and professional programs.
In 2005, Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal gave $20 million to the school's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding to promote interfaith understanding and the study of the Muslim world. The gift was the second-largest ever given to Georgetown at that point, and the center was renamed in his honor.[35][36]
In 2011, following the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) and served as its founding chair.[37][38]
In June 2023, the administrators announced the plan to rename the school in honor of the late Madeleine Albright, who served as a professor at SFS both before and after her tenure as U.S. secretary of state. It attracted criticism due to Albright's controversial legacy and the lack of consultation with the school's community members.[40][41] In October 2023, Georgetown announced that it was no longer considering renaming the school after Albright.[42]
In November 2023, Indonesian president Joko Widodo announced Georgetown's partnership with the Indonesian government to open a satellite campus in the country.[43][44] In January 2025, Georgetown SFS Asia-Pacific (GSAP) campus was launched in Jakarta, Indonesia, to offer graduate masters and visiting student programs.[45][46][47]
The Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS) degree is offered by the School of Foreign Service. The degree is rooted in the liberal arts. Following completion of the core requirements, students declare one of the following interdisciplinary majors:
There is also a joint degree — Bachelor of Science in Business and Global Affairs — offered in partnership with the McDonough School of Business (MSB).[56]
Graduate students can pursue eight interdisciplinary graduate degrees in the school:[57]
There are two joint executive degrees offered in partnership with Georgetown's McDonough School of Business: the Global Executive MBA offered in collaboration with the ESADE Business School in Spain and the INCAE Business School in Costa Rica, and the MA in International Business and Policy (MA-IBP). The school's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy also offers the Executive Master in Diplomacy and International Affairs (EMDIA) at the SFS campuses in Doha, Qatar, and Jakarta, Indonesia.[58][47] SFS is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a global consortium of schools that trains leaders in international affairs.[11]
Additionally, exceptional undergraduate SFS students can apply for the accelerated bachelor’s/master’s dual-degree program, which allows enrollment in one of the graduate programs (e.g. BSFS/MSFS, BSFS/MASIA, etc.) during the final undergraduate year and completion of both degrees in approximately five years.[59][60]
Georgetown offers a number of undergraduate and graduate certificate programs: African studies, Arab studies, Asian studies, Australian & New Zealand studies, German and European studies, international business diplomacy (honors program),[61] international development, Muslim-Christian understanding, Jewish civilization, justice & peace studies, Latin American studies, medieval studies, Russian & East European studies, social & political thought, and women's and gender studies.
Georgetown's programs in international relations have consistently ranked among the best in the world in surveys of the field's academics that have been published biennially since 2005 by Foreign Policy.[62] In 2014 and in 2018 Foreign Policy ranked Georgetown's master's programs first in the world and its bachelor's programs fourth.[63] In 2024, Georgetown's master's programs were ranked first by all three groups of respondents: international relations faculty, policymakers, and think tank staffers. Its bachelor's programs were ranked first by policymakers and think tank staffers and third by international relations faculty.[4]
In a Pipeline to the Beltway survey of makers of American foreign-policy from 2011, Georgetown ranked second overall in the quality of preparation for a career in the U.S. government, regardless of degree earned.[64] In 2023, U.S. News & World Report ranked Georgetown fifth for graduate studies in global policy and administration.[5] In 2024, Niche ranked Georgetown first in the United States for international relations.[6]
There are a vast array of clubs and student organizations at Georgetown that students from the SFS join. The elected representative organization of the SFS is the SFS Academic Council (SFSAC), which advocates for the SFS student body and works with the Dean's Office to address student concerns, spearhead new initiatives, and coordinate events.[65] The School of Foreign Service also sponsors a flagship peer-reviewed academic publication, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (GJIA), which is published by Johns Hopkins University Press and run by undergraduate and graduate students.[66]
The School of Foreign Service main campus, which is part of the main campus of Georgetown University, is located in the Georgetown neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C. In 2005, it opened another campus, the School of Foreign Service in Qatar (also known as SFS-Q or GU-Q), in Qatar Foundation's Education City in Doha, Qatar. In 2025, the school opened a facility in Jakarta, Indonesia, known as Georgetown SFS Asia-Pacific (GSAP), in partnership with the Indonesian government.[44][47] Many SFS undergraduates spend a minimum of one semester or a summer abroad, choosing from direct matriculation programs around the globe as well as programs of other universities and those run by Georgetown, including SFS-Q, GSAP and Villa Le Balze.
| No. | Name | Years | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Edmund A. Walsh SJ | 1919–1921 | [67] | |
| 2 | Roy S. MacElwee | 1921–1923 | [67] | |
| 3 | W. F. Notz | 1923–1935 | [67] | |
| 4 | Thomas H. Healy | 1935–1943 | [67] | |
| 5 | Edmund A. Walsh SJ | 1945–1950 | Acting dean | [67] |
| 6 | Frank L. Fadner SJ | 1950–1958 | Acting dean | [67] |
| 7 | John F. Parr | 1958–1962 | [67] | |
| 8 | William E. Moran, Jr. | 1962–1966 | [67] | |
| 9 | Joseph S. Sebes SJ | 1966–1968 | [68] | |
| 10 | Jesse Mann | 1968–1970 | [68] | |
| 11 | Peter F. Krogh | 1970–1995 | [68] | |
| 12 | Robert Gallucci | 1995–2009 | [68] | |
| 13 | Carol Lancaster | 2010–2013 | [69] | |
| - | James Reardon-Anderson | 2013–2015 | Interim dean | [70] |
| 14 | Joel Hellman | 2015–present | [70] |
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