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It is a shame that such a popular program is being downsized, when it should be expanded. Studying abroad in India this semester only came to fruition through the advice and encouragement from professors in the IDEV certificate. I wish more students could engage in development studies without a crunch of resources burdening the program’s expansion.

To respond to the “tailored career-planning, internship-seeking, pepsi-providing branch” of idev… What attracted me to the idev certificate is not just its curriculum but the emphasis that Ms. Khan and Professor Wagner placed on applying academic tools to real world experience and problem solving. Helping students find specific international internships is something that the career center cannot provide the way that idev has done. The program has excelled and attracted more students with its superior organization and unity as one certificate program, not just a variety of classes. I’m unaware of our “pepsi-provider” but would the administration cut funding for its own dinners and luncheons? Probably not.

Georgetown is less than 15 minutes away from the IMF and World Bank, but we cannot seem to support a program in international development at a world class foreign service institution? Someone please help me to better understand our priorities.

I’ll concede that argument about the career center was rather incomplete, so I’ll expand on it. When I began the process of applying for an internship in the field of development,
I looked at both the career center and IDEV. I received little to no help from the Career Center, while IDEV, and especially, went out of their way to help me. My quip about the newsletters was in reference to the fact that while IDEV has done an exceptional job of keeping in contact with me, the career center cannot even maintain a baseline level of periodically sending out updates to people who have demonstrated interest in careers in the field, despite it being their specialization. This may suggest that my concerns ought to be brought up about the effectiveness of the career center, but as long as international development is underserved by the career center, and as long as a quarter of the SFS is pursuing the certificate, I think there is reason to believe that having someone work with those students is hardly a superfluous expense.

Again, I would accept the premise of budget cuts, but not when taken in light of the other programs. Of all the certificates, as the article mentions, none were cut more than the International Development Certificate, in spite of the fact it is the fastest growing one, and in spite of the fact that President DeGioia emphasized its importance to the mission of our school. While I certainly hope it’s not someone in the SFS gleefully strangling its largest program, I am at a loss as to why it has been cut more than any other certificate, and it certainly makes me question the School of Foreign Service’s legitimate commitment to the field.

But for the sake of argument, let’s say all she was asking for was a full-time position. Think of what each full-time administrative professional is asked to do at Georgetown; in general, it’s much much more than just oversight of a single program. As a full-time administrator, I’d be surprised to learn that one person’s job is just a single certificate’s maintenance, no matter how popular. Program oversight of this sort is often handed to administrators who already have (more than) full-time work of their own. It’s not crazy to this administrator that the university would believe that this work can be done, and done well (as Ms. Khan so ably proved, according to this article), with less than full-time attention.

As for the Career Center, I’d argue that its effectiveness should be assessed on more than simply how many listserv emails you’ve received from them.

As for the proportion of the IDEV budget to IDEV’s popularity, I don’t know the numbers, but if it’s truly messed up, you may have a point. Budgets are messy, and there is no such thing as an uncontroversial budget line.

So call it damage control if you must (although I’m one who shares many complaints about our money matters, and have myself been in shoes similar to Ms. Khan’s….so damage control isn’t generally a care of mine), but this episode alone doesn’t illustrate, for me, administrative incompetence, nor suckiness, or atrocity. It’s disappointing for Ms. Khan, most importantly, but she has made a principled decision with a beautiful opportunity in front of her. I am optimistic for the future of the certificate, and Georgetown’s administration, despite this setback.

I took a lot of development courses while at Georgetown and was engaged in learning about development inside and outside the classroom. Georgetown has some really great development experts and practitioners on the faculty. You should consider taking their classes whether you will get a piece of paper and a scarf when you graduate.

And furthermore, don’t make it sound like it is just some program asking for more than it deserves. It is the most popular certificate and has the smallest budget. I would love to hear the logic behind that. And it’s just angry, uninformed students holding this opinion. Look at the quote by Dean Gallucci: “One way to do something interesting in the curriculum at Georgetown or anywhere else is to have people just work harder and do more. That’s not adding resources, it’s adding missions without adding resources, and that is not a good long-term strategy. It takes advantage of people, it exhausts people, and ultimately it doesn’t institutionalize the addition.” That sounds an awful lot to me like the former Dean of the SFS thinks that the current administration is taking advantage of a dedicated few. And he is absolutely right — there is no way the most popular certificate in the SFS, with a focus that our own President said is our most important responsibility should have the smallest budget.

Ms. Khan was clearly a beloved part of the IDEV program, and her presence and energy will be missed. But a factual report on the actual health of the certificate is needed before we simply interpret Ms. Khan’s unspecific parting shot as gospel that the SFS administration has abandoned all support and interest in this hugely successful program. She just said she didn’t get what she asked for. Let’s hope that MANY programs, faculty, and administrators don’t simply get whatever they “ask for”. We can’t want our tuition to go down AND want all funding requests across the university to be granted. IDEV people should know that as well as anyone.