Rangel Opens Doors to Careers in International Affairs 

UAlbany senior Libra Dolce in Washington, D.C. this past summer.

ALBANY, N.Y. (Oct. 8, 2019) – Winning the prestigious Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Summer Enrichment Grant gave UAlbany senior Libra Dolce the enhanced knowledge and tools to pursue a career in international affairs.

Dolce, a double major in Globalization and East Asian Studies with a minor in Japanese, knew she wanted an international career. Alongside 14 other undergraduate students selected nationally, she spent six weeks at Howard University in Washington, D.C. this past summer.

“This is an amazing program,” said Dolce, of Woodstock. “It provides the opportunity for students to dedicate six weeks to career exploration, a topic that can be difficult to focus on when I’m at school or working. We received resources and insight from professionals working in all different international fields. I was a bit unsure of what field I wanted to pursue, but after the Rangel Summer Enrichment Program, I know Foreign Service is the path for me.”

In D.C., she and the other Rangel recipients took two accredited courses and heard from many speakers who talked about their day-to-day responsibilities and the realities of international work at specific organizations. She toured the State Department, the Capitol building, the World Bank and numerous non-governmental organizations.

The University is accepting applications for this same grant from late October through Feb. 4, 2020 for next summer. The Rangel Summer Enrichment Program encourages applications from students from groups historically underrepresented in the Foreign Service, women, and those with financial need in order to fulfill the Rangel program mission – to enhance diversity in U.S. representation abroad. This is a U.S. Department of State-funded program.

The grant covers tuition, travel, room and board and pays a stipend. “The only way I was able to spend my summer in D.C. was through the gracious financial support of Rangel and the State Department,” Dolce said.

“They are providing students an opportunity to really dedicate time to planning our future. All of the staff, professors and speakers were incredibly supportive in our professional development,” she said. “I also value the advice I received from my mentor, who is a Rangel Fellow.

“My cohort was full of absolutely amazing, determined and intelligent students. I believe that I learned from them as well, and I am very excited to see where the future will take us. This program was definitely a highlight of my academic career,” she added.

Getting to know other students in the Rangel Summer Enrichment program was a plus for Dolce.

She first heard about the Rangel program in Jacqueline Quevedo Ledermann’s class, Perspectives on Globalization.

Ledermann is assistant director of Global Academic Programs in UAlbany’s Center for International Education and Global Strategy, where she manages external grant opportunities such as the Rangel, the Critical Language Scholarship and the U.S. Student Fulbright Scholarship.

Dolce will return to D.C. in the spring for Rockefeller College’s Semester in Washington Program. She is president of the Japanese Student Association, a peer mentor for Writing and Critical Inquiry and a volunteer for the Intensive English Language Program. In addition, she received an internship to the SUNY Center for International Development. She is applying for an English Teaching Assistantship in Taiwan through the U.S. Student Fulbright Program, in addition to applying for the Critical Language Scholarship in Japanese. After her time abroad, she plans to apply to the Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship and the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship for graduate school.

The Critical Language Scholarship Program is an intensive, fully funded study abroad program for U.S. university students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world. Applications are being accepted until Nov. 19.

Contact Ledermann to learn more about these fully funded opportunities.

For more news, subscribe to UAlbany's RSS headline feeds