Georgetown students demand development program - and succeed

Armed with cameras, a group of Georgetown University undergraduates visited classroom after classroom in early 2006, asking fellow students to raise their hands if they wanted the option of concentrating in international development. They delivered a stack of signatures to President John DeGioia, who launched a task force on the issue. Three months later, the first students enrolled in a new certificate program. Georgetown hired dozens of new faculty, including well-known practitioners and academics such as Andrew Natsios, former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and Katherine Marshall, long-time World Bank executive and senior advisor on faith and ethics. Georgetown now boasts more than 100 faculty members “engaged in teaching and research on development issues ranging from fighting the spread of diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, transitioning from conflict to peace and reconstruction, and promoting economic growth and democracy.” The certificate program born of the students’ push to bring development to campus, is based in the School of Foreign Service’s Mortara Center for International Studies. The program has two prerequisites - micro- and macroeconomics - and requires that students complete one core course, “Introduction to the Economics and Politics of Development,” as well as five courses selected from the certificate’s five subfields: politics of development; economic development; regional studies; environment, health, technology and development; ethics, religion, culture and development. At least three of these five courses must come from regional studies; environment, health, technology and development; or ethics, religion, culture and development. Students pursuing the certificate are also required to participate in an internship or “structured experience on the ground” - either while studying abroad, through coursework in a developing nation that incorporates development work in the field, or through a course at Georgetown with an additional fourth credit for involvement in social activities in a field related to international development. Internship opportunities with partner organizations include four-week homestay programs in Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico that include work with international nongovernmental organizations on indigenous and environmental issues. Students interested in working in Africa may spend eight weeks in Zambia collaborating with Project Concern International, examining the relationship between HIV and AIDS and food insecurity. In the first year of the certificate program, 11 students graduating from the undergraduate level had certificates in international development. A year later, in June 2008, 35 undergraduates receiving their degrees earned certificates in international development, making this the fastest growing certificate program on campus, according to professor Maria Luise Wagner, director of the certificate program. Due to the program’s growing popularity, Georgetown has raised the certificate’s graduation requirements by adding prerequisites for enrollment and requirements for completion. The certificate program currently has the most requirements of any certificate program on campus, says Wagner - 18 course hours, an internship, at least one skills clinic offering students lessons from practitioners in the field, and a research paper of 20 pages or more - but this has not dampened student enthusiasm or enrollment and the faculty is moving to add new course sections. The certificate program now falls under the growing umbrella of the university’s Initiative on Global Development. Undergraduate students pursuing the certificate and graduate students focusing on international development within the Master of Science in Foreign Service, Master of Public Policy, Master of Policy Management or those pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies can avail themselves of this universitywide initiative, which brings a wide range of disciplines and the university’s diverse resources to bear on the question of “fighting poverty and ending human suffering” around the world. The initiative facilitates interdisciplinary research for both students and faculty while sponsoring lectures and conferences and expanding Georgetown’s development curriculum as well as professional opportunities for graduates of the university. Read more career advice articles.