SFS Dean Krogh Directed a New Vision

 

In 1972, Dean Peter F. Krogh appointed Dr. Chester A. Crocker as the first full-time director dedicated to the MSFS program. This marked a return to academia for Crocker, who prior to his appointment to the National Security Council by Henry Kissinger was a lecturer in African government and politics at the American University. 

Under this new leadership, new co-curricular programs were introduced to the MSFS, including second-year policy-oriented workshops and final oral exams administered by practitioners in the field. MSFS’s emphasis on practical skills-oriented training was praised by the Hoya as a successful example amid a hubbub of Georgetown graduate students being underprepared for future careers after graduation. 

 

“It was pointed out that in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program, for example, an element of that program’s success is the stress on a generalist, inter-disciplinary knowledge,” said The Hoya’s Graduate Conservator in an article on February 28, 1975.

This decade also saw the controversial appointment of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the post of University Professor of Diplomacy. Rather than teaching ordinary classes, Professor Kissinger gave lectures on current issues in international affairs, which were open to SFS graduate students but closed to the media, including campus newspapers. Several MSFS students attended his lectures on Cold War foreign policy and beyond.

1977 Hoya article entitled “Kissinger on the Hilltop Breeds Controversy”

Throughout the 1970s, MSFS continued to bolster its recruitment and celebration of international students. 

International students donning their native dress at the Walsh Building