As O’Neill students return for the fall 2021 semester, those in O’Neill Senior Lecturer Bill Foley’s J-531 National and Homeland Security in America course will get the chance to contribute to the U.S. Department of State’s policymaking process. For the seventh time in as many years, Foley will lead his students through a Diplomacy Lab project, a research opportunity allowing students to dive into complex foreign policy challenges proposed by State Department officials.
For fall 2021, students will evaluate the effectiveness of social and cultural exchange programs for improving the United States’ image, messaging, and foreign relations with various nations.
“The Diplomacy Lab project gives students a chance to engage the international dialogue in a way that no other embedded government project can do,” Foley explains. “Our students actually become the research arm of the U.S. Department of State.”