Learning in the Real World

Retired Ambassador Barbara Bodine, F71, says her decades in the U.S. Foreign Service grew out of a desire to “do good, do it abroad, and work on big issues and policy.”

Those plans nearly derailed when Bodine—who’d cobbled together loans, summer job earnings, and minimal family money to afford graduate study—unexpectedly found herself without funds to complete her final semester at The Fletcher School. Last-minute aid from Fletcher enabled her to earn her master’s degree and begin a career that took her to hotspots in the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, and beyond.

Now she’s committed to helping a new generation of aspiring diplomats. Bodine spoke with One Tufts about her long-standing support of The Fletcher School, recent gifts that expand student access to experiential learning, and a career spanning multiple presidential administrations and academic appointments.

What does supporting The Fletcher School mean to you personally?
My Fletcher experience was pivotal. I’m very aware of how precarious it can be to find the resources to complete a degree and engage with all the opportunities that should be part of graduate education and career preparation. I know how it feels to be within a few months of getting your master’s and not have money to complete your program. I want to help students who might find themselves in that situation at Fletcher realize their full potential.

Why have you focused your recent gifts on student internships?
Experiential learning provides an invaluable opportunity to take theory into the real world. Today’s graduate students have nailed how to be successful students since they were 4. An internship is often their first real contact with the fluidity, ambiguity, and pace of the working world as opposed to the classroom.

There were no internships in my day. I was extremely fortunate that my early supervisors kept a 22-year-old foreign service officer from tanking her career through newbie mistakes. Internships provide space to make mistakes and learn from them before careers launch.

You served in Kuwait during the Iraqi Invasion and were aboard a hijacked Yemeni plane when you were ambassador to Yemen. Is it possible to prepare for such situations?
Some people deal well with crises and rise to the occasion, and some do not. You learn by living and doing. It’s important to remember that the crisis is not about you. Get out of yourself. Focus on the problem, and focus on your people, on others affected.

Can one individual have an impact?
Absolutely. While no one can fix the world, you can work to fix your piece of it, help those in front of you right now, solve problems. That could mean global public service, or a scholarship, or something else. You will never know the broad impact of your actions, but you will have impact.