By SUSAN JONES
Sherry Zalika Sykes was on the “precipice of retirement” from the State Department when she was lured back to “build the next generation of Foreign Service officers and civil service officers.”
The role has brought her to Pitt as Diplomat in Residence for the Allegheny region, which includes Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.
Diplomats in Residence are hosted by about 20 universities across the United States, with each covering a separate region in the country. The area Sykes is covering was split off from the New York region, and she will travel around the region from her home base in the Cathedral of Learning.
She is being hosted by the Frederick Honors College. Nicola Foote, dean of the Honors College, said the State Department was looking for institutions with strengths in STEM and business fields, in addition to the traditional programs in political science and international affairs, and with a diverse and inclusive student body, “so I feel very personally thrilled that we were recognized as meeting these criteria.”
“It is considered extremely prestigious to serve as a host institution for this program and institutions must submit a formal application to the State Department to serve in this capacity,” Foote said. “Having the Diplomat in Residence based on the Pitt campus means that instead of having access to our assigned diplomat twice a year, students can meet intensively with the diplomat throughout the year. Sherry will be on campus at least 10 days a month. Our selection reflects the high esteem in which Pitt and Frederick Honors are regarded nationally and our reputation for excellence.”
There is no cost to the University for this program. Syke’s salary and a programming budget are fully funded through the State Department. Pitt is providing an office in the Honors College.
The program is designed to raise awareness to the campus community about careers at the Department of State, whether in Washington, D.C., or at U.S. embassies and consulates overseas.
Foote said Sykes will be holding extensive programming within the Honors College and also is partnering with other areas of the University, including the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, the Institute for Politics, the University Center for International Studies and the Global Experiences Office. Academic units also can propose programs in partnership with Sykes.
Her core focus will be providing Pitt students with internship, fellowship and career placement advice as related to the State Department, Foote said. She also will be giving talks based on her own career trajectory, as well as bringing in other distinguished speakers who have worked in foreign service.
It’s not just students that are being targeted in the awareness campaign, but also faculty and staff. Sykes pointed out that she didn’t join the State Department until she was 37.
She was born in the Philadelphia area, got an international relations degree from Stanford and spent considerable time in Tanzania with her late husband, who was from the African country. She was working in Tanzania with USAID (Agency for International Development) when she first learned about the Foreign Service exam.
“People don’t know that you can join at 37 and that’s perfectly fine,” Sykes said. “The median age is around 34-35. It’s not unusual for Foreign Service officers to be career changers, for instance, like I was. And so I saw the opportunity to spread the good word to people who don’t know that they might have a career that they never knew was possible for them.”
Sykes’ own career has taken her to several African countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia, South Africa and Mozambique — when she wanted to learn Portuguese — and then back to Washington. She is now a senior Foreign Service officer. “I am in the management career track, but I’ve done about half of my assignments in management and about half of them in environmental diplomacy,” which has taken her everywhere from China to Colombia. It’s common for Foreign Service officers — which number close to 13,000 — to move around every two to three years.
Many think that State Department jobs are just for political science and international relations majors, but there is a need for everything that it takes to support a U.S. embassy overseas — doctors, nurses, IT experts, office managers, engineers and more. Plus there are 11,000 civil servants who work domestically for the department.
All of the jobs, internships and fellowships can be found at careers.state.gov. The Foreign Service jobs are open to anyone 21 to 60.
Sykes is spreading the word about these jobs on and off college campuses. For students, she suggests starting with an internship or fellowship in the State Department to see if it’s the kind of career that’s right for them.
Another goal is to increase diversity in the ranks at State. Among people at her senior rank, Sykes said only 1 percent are Black women, “and I just I don’t like being part of a 1 percent club. I think that by doing this kind of outreach, we can diversify regional representation, as well as racial and ethnic and all other types of diversity.”
Sykes noted that the Foreign Service Act of 1980 said the service should “reflect the American people, both in terms of its geography and everything else.” In the past, ”you had to be in the old boys club,” Sykes said, “and specifically, the blue blood Harvard-Princeton club in order to be invited in somehow. And the legislation said no more. We’re going to have an exam and it’s going to level the playing field.”
Efforts like the Diplomat in Residence program are “trying to make good on that legislation.”
Sykes can be reached at DIRAllegheny@state.gov.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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