About Fletcher

The origins of “public diplomacy”

Daniel Birdsall

If you’ve poked around our website enough, or otherwise have more than a passing familiarity with Fletcher, you’ve likely come across the term “public diplomacy” at some point. While it mostly makes intuitive sense to me, I’ve rarely stopped to think specifically what we’re talking about when we refer to public diplomacy. An interesting piece of web content recently trickled down to me by way of one of Fletcher’s longest-tenured faculty members, as well as our Dean of Admissions, which I thought worth sharing.

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Career Trip schedule
About Fletcher

Washington, DC Career Trip

Daniel Birdsall

There’s currently a vacation-week feel to Fletcher, with empty classrooms and strangely quiet hallways. An extension of Presidents’ Day to a week-long holiday, perhaps? Good guess, but wrong. The lull is due to the annual Washington, DC career trip administered by the Office of Career Services (OCS). OCS has something going on at pretty much all times throughout the year, but even by their busy standards it’s fair to say that the DC Career Trip is their equivalent of the Super Bowl.

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Admissions Tips

Holistic application review at work

Daniel Birdsall

I frequently find myself telling prospective students to expect to hear the term “holistic application process” bandied about as they apply to grad school. It’s pretty much an industry-standard trope these days, and I sometimes worry it can come across as a chunk of highfalutin jargon that sounds official without actually meaning anything, like “solutions,” “cross-functional,” or “leverage” used as a verb. In the admissions context, “holistic” means that there’s not a single attribute upon which a decision will consistently hinge for all candidates, and that all the information we request in an application meaningfully contributes to an applicant’s case for admission.

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faculty book covers
About FletcherOur AlumniOur Faculty

Talking books with Fletcher book talks

Daniel Birdsall

As a house of learned doctors, Fletcher regularly gets to celebrate the release of major books by our faculty. There’s Prof. Chris Miller’s Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia, Prof. Alex de Waal’s Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, and Prof. Sulmaan Khan’s Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping, to name a few of the more recent publications. It’s common for faculty to give “book talks” on campus in support of their latest work, and they’re among the most popular events during the academic year. Late March will see Prof. Kelly Sims Gallagher discuss her just-published Titans of the Climate: Explaining Policy Process in the United States and China.

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Reading day snacks
Our Staff

Lucas’ reading day

Daniel Birdsall

Around this time of year, this space often features staff reports from application reading days. While we all read applications here and there as we can, most of us try to carve out a day each week to focus solely on reading applications from home. This year it’s Lucas’ turn. Lucas has been reading applications for a few years now, but this year he’s entered the rotation of all-day reading binges.

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application deadlines
Admissions Tips

More deadlines. More deadlines?

Daniel Birdsall

Are you tired of deadline reminders yet? If you’ve already submitted your application, it’s fair if your answer is “oh indeed,” and you can safely disregard this post. If, however, you weren’t able to submit your application by the previous January 10 deadline, I’ll underscore that it’s not too late! Most Fletcher degree programs have a couple more deadlines remaining, so there’s still ample time to submit your application for fall 2019 enrollment.

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Galapagos iguana
Uncategorized

Winter break updates from around the world

Daniel Birdsall

Our students cover a lot of ground during winter break. It’s a long enough period to accommodate internships, field work, and general globetrotting, but also not so long to make treating it as something of a vacation seem unreasonable. For many, it’s a nice respite from the hectic pace of the academic year, and a chance to catch up with family and friends. I asked a bunch of our students what they got up to over winter break, and got some typically eclectic responses.

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