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Walsh School of Foreign Service

Redefining International Affairs

Created as the first U.S. school of international affairs, the Walsh School of Foreign Service vowed to train young leaders to serve the world. As SFS enters its second century at a time of unprecedented global uncertainty, we are once again called to prepare a new generation for foreign service—in new ways that reflect the challenges ahead.

We invite you to learn about our strategic priorities and how to support them.

Confronting new challenges—with a century of experience

Our mission calls us to educate leaders with a deep connection to the Jesuit value of service, and both the commitment and skills to confront the world’s challenges.

In meeting that mission, we will benefit from our rich history, expert faculty, and enduring values—and build on those strengths through ambitious investments in faculty and curriculum, learning experiences, global reach, and physical space.

dean hellman speaking

‘This is an extraordinary moment to be at SFS’

Hear Dean Hellman’s vision for building on the SFS’s rich history and enduring values through ambitious investments in the school’s faculty and curriculum, learning experiences, global reach, and physical space.

Redefining International Affairs

Read an overview of the SFS’s strategic priorities as it prepares a new generation of leaders to serve the world—in new ways that reflect the challenges ahead.

View Prospectus
  • How will we teach the disciplines of the 21st Century?

    Deploy a faculty that breaks boundaries to find new solutions.

    To redefine the modern study and practice of international affairs, we need leadership and expertise that reflect the new forces shaping our global order. That means a faculty that cuts across disciplines, employs new technologies, and partners with innovators across all realms.

    We have an opportunity—and an obligation—to engage with the challenges that will redefine foreign service for the next century, specifically:

    SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

    Scientific and technological innovation are transforming modern society. We need leaders equally conversant in science and global issues, who can take informed, ethical actions for the benefit of their companies and organizations, their countries, and the world.

    With your support, we can enrich SFS’s Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA) program and attract the distinguished, academically diverse faculty central to its impact.

    HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY REDUCTION

    New global crises and their aftermaths require that organizations and governments mount development-specific responses that are nimble, integrated, and comprehensive.

    With your support, we can build on premier programs in global human development and refugee and migration studies to broaden the range of fieldwork opportunities available for incoming students, attract and retain world-class scholars and educators, and further solidify Georgetown’s role as a convener on these critical issues.

    BUSINESS AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS

    The private sector has a significant role in reshaping the global landscape, sparking the worldwide integration of economies, markets, and policies.

    With your support, we can give the next generation of business and government leaders a truly integrated training in global affairs and global business through Georgetown’s first joint undergraduate degree, offered by SFS and the McDonough School of Business.

    CULTURE, RELIGION, AND THE NARRATIVE ARTS

    In this time of increased conflict and misunderstanding between peoples and cultures, there’s an urgent need to bridge differences and to humanize international affairs.

    With your support, we can explore and engage with global cultures through new programs that use performance, arts, narrative, and cultural diplomacy to break down barriers to understanding.

    To learn more about or contribute to this priority, please contact us at sfsgiving@georgetown.edu.

  • How will we prepare students to take on global problems?

    Give them a lab to observe and address real-world issues.

    Climate change, migration, terrorism: these multifaceted problems won’t improve without leaders who know how to integrate theory and practice across disciplines.

    Recognizing that new challenges require a new way of learning, SFS has introduced a suite of innovative courses—the Centennial Labs—designed around real-world problems.

    These labs cut across conventional disciplines. They employ partnerships and design thinking to spur innovation. They take students to the field to observe and test solutions. Centennial Labs redefine what a classroom can be. With your support, Centennial Labs will become the signature of an SFS education.

    To learn more about or contribute to this priority, please contact us at sfsgiving@georgetown.edu.

  • How will we fulfill a truly global aspiration?

    Make the SFS student body a global hub.

    At SFS, global diversity and global experience are at the very core of our learning environment.

    SFS has built a reputation as America’s first truly global school. By bringing together students from all over the world, we develop leaders who understand the impact of their decisions in a global context.

    But to maintain that position, we need to attract a more socioeconomically diverse pool of global students. And we need to ensure that all SFS students incorporate a global experience into their education.

    A STUDENT BODY THAT REFLECTS OUR WORLD

    We seek to attract the very best, most internationally diverse undergraduate and graduate student body in the world.
    Learn more »

    AN IMMERSIVE GLOBAL EXPERIENCE FOR EVERY STUDENT

    We aim to integrate a global experience into the program of every SFS undergraduate student.
    Learn more »

  • How will we deliver the nation’s most ambitious international affairs education?

    Create spaces that enrich and inspire.

    SFS’s home—the Edward B. Bunn S.J. Intercultural Center—is the heart of civic life on Georgetown’s campus, benefiting students from schools and programs across the university.

    But SFS’s home needs to do more. It needs to facilitate and reflect our new model of teaching and learning. It needs to unify and inspire our campus around Georgetown’s global ambitions. To fulfill that vision, we will:

    • Create common spaces for informal learning and community building
    • Renovate our classroom space to create flexible, tech-enabled teaching rooms
    • Reimagine and expand faculty space to facilitate collaboration
    • Establish an iconic convening space
    • Unite Georgetown’s global programs under one roof—and ensure they have space to grow

    Your support will be instrumental as we look to expand and, ultimately, reimagine our home. To learn more about or contribute to this priority, please contact us at sfsgiving@georgetown.edu.

Inside a Centennial Lab: Addressing drought in Maharashtra, India

Through this studio-based course, operated in partnership with the government of Maharashtra, students designed, prototyped, and implemented solutions to one of India’s critical development problems: drought.

“Having entered upon the stage of world politics and world commerce we assume worldwide obligations. Our viewpoint can never be quite the same again.”

— Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., SFS founder, in dedicatory remarks on November 25, 1919

Thank you for your support.

The generosity of our alumni and friends has been essential to the success of SFS’s first century, and now we set our sights on the opportunities ahead. Philanthropic support will make this vision possible.

To learn more about or contribute to these priorities, please contact us at sfsgiving@georgetown.edu.