Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service

This year’s Georgetown Leadership Seminar (GLS), the premier executive education program of the School of Foreign Service, was the largest in the program’s 27-year history and included its first participant from Iran.

GLS was a source of great excitement for me and more than exceeded my expectations.

Designed to bring together young leaders for a week of debate and discussions centered on major issues in U.S. foreign policy, GLS showcases Georgetown University and School of Foreign Service faculty as well as speakers from government, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations. This year, the first day was devoted to lessons learned from the Bush administration and included talks with former National Security Council adviser Anthony Lake and the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace USMC (Ret.), himself a GLS alumnus.

At points during the week, Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy in the School of Foreign Service Madeleine Albright reflected on her tenure as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Secretary of State, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the newly-installed head of the Policy Planning office at the Department of State and former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University outlined President Obama’s foreign policy priorities. Highlights of seminars on the foreign policy challenges facing the new administration included a panel on U.S.-China relations featuring SFS professors Robert Sutter, Lonnie Henley, and Joanna Lewis, while a group including Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, SFS Professor Mark Busch, and former World Bank Vice President Jean-Louis Sarbib discussed the current global economic crisis.

On the seminar’s last day, GLS participants heard from DC political commentator and analyst Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report on the topic of the 2008 elections and former Senator Charles Hagel on Washington’s political culture. Reflecting on the week’s events, one participant said, “taking part in GLS and coming to Georgetown University was one of the richest intellectual experiences I’ve had... GLS was a source of great excitement for me and more than exceeded my expectations.”