There was something new at the 2011 International Studies Association conference in Montreal, Canada: a working group on public diplomacy. Organized by Craig Hayden, assistant professor at American University, and co-chaired by Kathy Fitzpatrick, professor at Quinnipiac University, it was a unique discussion to create a community of scholars across the many disciplines that comprise “public diplomacy.”
Keynotes were given by Matt Armstrong and Maureen Cormack, Executive Assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
Congratulations to Craig for a terrific, productive and long overdue working group. I’ll leave it to the participants to highlight the discussions of the day. Hopefully we will see more of this type of event to increase collaboration, understanding, and relevancy of public diplomacy within and with academia.
After attending the Summer Institute in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California last July, I came to realization that we are at the front end of the development of a new academic discipline in PD. While there are number of institutions that offer some course work and degree programs at the graduate level — USC, the Institute of World Politics, Syracuse, GWU and American U. just to name a few — it crossed my mind that the basics of PD could actually be taught at the undergraduate level too.During our class’ graduation dinner, I had the rare opportunity to sit next to the assistant dean. I told her that I wondered if an “Intro to PD 101 – 102” course curriculum could be developed for the community college level. “Of course,” she said! Her advice to me was, “Go for it! Make it happen!”
Good point Rick. You may like to know that I introduced a final-year undergraduate module on Public and Cultural Diplomacy at London Metropolitan University over a year ago, which builds on the second-year module on The New Diplomacy that I introduced in 2008.
These modules, which are in the process of being expanded, form the backbone of the new BA in Diplomacy we are launching at London Met from September 2012. These modules are incredibly popular with my undergraduate students, boosted to a large extent by visits to embassies and practitioner lectures which are fairly easy to organise given our location.
Please get in contact if you would like to know more about my modules and new programme.