The Foreign Policy Association of Central Pennsylvania believes that the youth of America should be well informed on international issues and U.S. policy in foreign affairs. We have instituted two scholarship programs to that end.
The first program is in conjunction with the Governor’s School for Global and International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. This Governor’s School program invites high school sophomores and juniors to a four week on-campus session in global and cultural studies. The Foreign Policy Association invites Central Pennsylvania students attending the Governor’s School to apply by submitting an essay on a selected foreign policy issue. Three students are selected and interviewed. The winning student or students is invited to attend one of our monthly dinner meetings along with their parents and give a presentation to our audience. The student presentations have been excellent! The schedule for this program starts with the Governor’s School in June / July. The FPA program is announced during the Governor’s School session. For more information about this program, please contact Pete St. Pierre at restp@comcast.net.
The second program is in conjunction with our student scribe program and our annual embassy trip. The Foreign Policy Association has a college student scribe for each of our monthly dinner meetings. The student scribe attends the dinner and speaker sessions for free, writes a short summary of the speaker’s remarks for our monthly newsletter and receives a $25 stipend. Each year in May, members of the Foreign Policy Association travel to Washington DC to visit a foreign embassy. We first stop at the State Department for a briefing on the country whose embassy we will be visiting. We then have lunch at a restaurant with the cuisine of the country. In the afternoon, we visit and tour the embassy, and have the opportunity to hear an embassy speaker talk about his or her country and their relations with the United States. One scribe is chosen to go on this embassy trip free of charge. For more information on the scribe program and the opportunity to visit a foreign embassy with the Foreign Policy Association, please contact Howard Davison at hcdavison@verizon.net.
Governor’s School Recipients
2018 Award Winner:
Akash Banerjee was the 2018 recipient of the Foreign Policy Association’s Governor School Honorarium. Akash, from Warwick High School in Lancaster, spoke to the Foreign Policy Association at the March, 2019 meeting. His topic was Global and International Implications of Mental Health. His talk was provocative and very well received by the 100+ members in attendance. After his presentation, Akash received the $600 Foreign Policy Association honorarium
2017 Award Winners:
– Divya Rajachadran, Dallastown Area High School, “Human Rights / Global Security”
– Emma Marie Spearing, Penn Manor High School, “Women’s Treatment Globally: Gender-Based Violence”
– Austin Glass, Hempfield High School, “Refugee Prosperity”
