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Fellowship Winner Has A Global Vision

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By KLINT LOWRY

The Suncoast News

Published: July 17, 2008

Shannon Brown's passport has two stamps in it: from an anthropological study trip to Peru during spring break of her freshman year at Rollins College.

But by the time the 20-year-old is 30, that passport likely will have had quite a workout.

The New Port Richey resident recently got her ticket punched toward the career of her dreams. She was awarded a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Pickering Fellowships are designed to help develop promising undergraduate and graduate students interested in working as U.S. Foreign Service officers.

"Up until the end of high school, I wanted to be a writer of children's books," Brown said. "I was going to save the world that way."

When she got to college, though, she started thinking about what really interested her. Brown liked history and specifically was drawn to studying the relationships between nations that shaped history. She's majoring in international relations at Winter Park-based Rollins, where she is now a junior.

"I really want to be involved in negotiations," Brown said.

On today's geopolitical map, there's no place she would rather be than smack-dab in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - in a diplomatic sense. Middle Eastern affairs is one of her favorite topics.

Last year, Brown led a student effort to start an Arabic-language program at Rollins. She is spending this summer in a student-faculty scholarship program researching the sustainable energy policies of oil exporters Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Working on a school-related project while other students are working on tans demonstrates the passion and dedication the Pickering Fellowship was created to nurture.

"Shannon Brown is an exceptional young woman with a breadth of scholarship and skills that make her unique and fully deserving of being named a Pickering Fellow," said Jayashree Shivamoggi, director of external and competitive scholarships for Rollins College. "Her impressive leadership record on campus and her desire to represent the United States as a diplomat made for a very strong candidacy."

Such attributes are what it takes to secure a highly competitive Pickering Fellowship. There were 20 awarded from 1,000 applicants. The final step came in April, when Brown went to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington. She was among 40 finalists who took part in interviews and writing assignments.

Used to its full advantage, a Pickering Fellowship is like having the door held wide open on a career. Tuition, room, board and fees are paid for the junior and senior years of college and the first and second years of graduate school. It includes internships in Washington and abroad.

After earning a master's degree, Pickering Fellows serve a minimum of three years in the U.S. Foreign Service.

Considering what was at stake, the trip to Washington could have been nerve-wracking. For Brown, however, being surrounded by like-minded people was an affirmation she was on the right career track.

"I'm the sort of person who gets bored very quickly," she said, adding she likes to be perpetually challenged.

Between the combination of disciplines required to do the job and the fact that Foreign Service officers relocate every two to four years, on average, a career in that field seems to promise that will not be a problem.

For example, the namesake of her fellowship, former career diplomat turned consultant Thomas Pickering, 76, was, between 1974 and 1996, U.S. ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, the United Nations, India and Russia.

Foreign Service officers get to declare their preferences, but there's no guarantee where Brown might wind up. And there's always the chance of being sent somewhere unpleasant, even dangerous. It's not the kind of life many would find conducive to having a family.

On the other hand, she will have an opportunity to see the world and serve her country.

"It's hard to think of having a family and things like that in the abstract this far out," Brown said. "I think that it would be difficult.

"I am aware there are risks to being a diplomat. I think the benefits far outweigh the dangers."

Klint Lowry can be reached at (727) 815-1067 or

WANT MORE DETAILS?

For information on the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship program, visit the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Web site, www.woodrow.org, click on the blue "Fellowships" tab, then click on the undergraduate and graduate opportunities under "Foreign Affairs."

klowry@suncoastnews.com. klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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