Foreign Service Institute
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the United States Federal Government's primary training institution for employees of the U.S. foreign affairs community, preparing American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas and in Washington. FSI provides more than 600 courses — including some 70 foreign languages — to more than 100,000 enrollees a year from the Department of State and more than 40 other government agencies and the military service branches. The FSI is based at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia.
The Institute's programs include training for the development of United States Foreign Service and Civil Service professionals, and for Foreign Service Nationals who work at U.S. posts around the world. Ranging in length from one day to two years, courses are designed to promote successful performance in each professional assignment, to ease the adjustment to other countries and cultures, and to enhance the leadership and management capabilities of the U.S. foreign affairs community. Other courses and services help family members prepare for the demands of a mobile lifestyle and living abroad, and provide employees and their families with important information about such critical and timely topics as emergency preparedness and cyber-security awareness, among others.
The Director of the Foreign Service Institute is equivalent in rank to an Assistant Secretary of State, and is appointed by the Secretary of State. The current Director of the Foreign Service Institute is Dr. Ruth A. Whiteside.
Read more about Foreign Service Institute: History, Organization
Famous quotes containing the words foreign, service and/or institute:
“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”
—Stephen Decatur (1779–1820)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)