Studying diplomacy topics in the classroom? "It's a Complex System."
Launched in 2013, Diplomacy Lab enables the Department of State to “course-source” research related to foreign policy by harnessing the efforts of students and faculty at universities across the country. A list of projects proposed by State Department officers is shared with partners twice per year. Faculty at partner universities “bid” on the projects they’d like to lead a student team in researching during the following semester. Research can be conducted as part of a course, seminar, or as an independent project.
Diplomacy Lab is designed to address two priorities:
- The Department of State’s determination to engage the American people in the work of diplomacy
- The imperative to broaden the State Department’s research base in response to a proliferation of complex global challenges.
Students participating in Diplomacy Lab explore real-world challenges identified by the Department and work under the guidance of faculty members who are authorities in their fields. This initiative allows students to contribute directly to the policymaking process while helping the State Department tap into an underutilized reservoir of intellectual capital. In addition to learning the system methods by applying them to address the State Department’s concerns, the students will learn of the mission and career opportunities in the State Department.
Professor C. Robert "Bob" Kenley shared, "The topics were selected to have projects for the students where the complexity of the organization we are working with, the US State Department, is a complex system comprised of people, and the groups that they are interacting with for recruiting, ethnic minorities, also are a complex system, again comprised of people. This provides an experiential learning approach for multiple system methods that the course teaches."
Professor Kenley intends to incorporate the topics into this spring semester's SYS 40000 course as part of offerings of the Purdue Systems Collaboratory's Undergraduate Systems Certificate Program. "We have added secondary source literature reviews and interviews of experts and stakeholders, which we normally do not emphasize." A libraries professor will also be collaborating with Kenley for the course.
Purdue Policy Research Insitute announced Kenley's awards as two among five Purdue University project bids that have been accepted by the State Department! The other bids are as follows:
- Strategies for Identifying Mis-/Disinformation: Professor Bethany S. McGowan and Professor Matthew N. Hannah, Libraries and School of Information Studies
- Where are the Freely Associated States (FAS) students?' Professor Anne Traynor, College of Education
- Explore BIM and GIS Integration for US Embassies: Professor Clark Cory, Polytechnic Institute