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Young West Pasco Woman Going places

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: July 12, 2008

WINTER PARK -- Rollins College junior Shannon Brown's passport only has two stamps in it. She got them coming and going from a trip she took to Peru on an anthropological study during spring break her freshman year.

But then she's only 20 years old. It's likely by the time she's 30 that passport will have had a workout like few ever do.

Brown, a resident of New Port Richey, recently got her ticket punched toward the career of her dreams. She was awarded a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship, one of the U.S. government's most prestigious awards for graduate students.

Funded by the U.S. State Department and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the fellowship is designed to help develop promising students interested in careers as a foreign affairs officer.

"Up until the end of high school, I wanted to be a writer of children's books," Brown said. "I was going to save the world that way."

When she got to college, though, she reassessed that idea. She started thinking about what really interested her. She liked history, and was specifically drawn to studying the relationships between nations that shaped history. She is majoring in international relations at Rollins.

"I really want to be involved in negotiations," Brown said.

On today's geopolitical map, there's no place she'd rather be than smack dab in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – in the diplomatic sense. Middle Eastern affairs are one of her favorite topics.

Last year, Brown led a student effort to start an Arabic-language program at Rollins. She is spending this summer at the school participating in a student-faculty Summer Scholarship Program researching the sustainable energy policies of oil-exporters Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Working on a school-related project while other students are working on their tans is a demonstration of the kind of passion and dedication the Pickering Fellowship was created to nurture.

"Shannon Brown is an exceptional young woman with a breadth of scholarship and skills that make her unique and fully deserving of being named a Pickering Fellow," said Jayashree Shivamoggi, director of external and competitive scholarships for Rollins College. "Her impressive leadership record on campus and her desire to represent the United States as a diplomat made for a very strong candidacy."

It takes a strong candidacy to be awarded a Pickering Fellowship. There were 20 awarded from a pool of 1,000 applicants. The final step came in April, when Brown went to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. She was among 40 finalists who took part in interview sessions and writing assignments to determine which of them would get the fellowships.

Used to its full advantage, a Pickering fellowship is like having the door held wide open on a career. Tuition, room, board and fees are paid for the junior and senior year of college and the first and second year of graduate school. It includes internships between school years in Washington and abroad.

After earning a master's degree, fellows then serve a minimum of three years in the Foreign Service, setting the groundwork of a full-time career.

Considering what was at stake, the trip to Washington could have been nerve wracking. For Brown, however, there was something exciting about the experience. Being surrounded by like-minded people gave her a sense of affirmation she was on the right career track.

"I'm the sort of person who gets bored very quickly," she said; adding she likes to be perpetually challenged.

Between the combinations of disciplines required to do the job and the fact that Foreign Service officers relocate every two to four years on average a career in that field seems to guarantee that won't be a problem.

For example, the namesake of her fellowship, former career diplomat turned consultant Thomas Pickering, 76, was, between 1974 and 1996, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, the United Nations, India and Russia.

Foreign Service officers get to declare their preference for assignments, but there is no guarantee where Brown might wind up. The nature of the job is a chance of being sent somewhere unpleasant, even dangerous. It's also not the kind of life many wouldn't find conducive to having a family life.

On the other hand, there is the chance to see the world, serve her country and put her talents to full use in all sorts of ways.

Who knows? She might even hammer out a Middle East peace treaty someday.

"It's hard to think of having a family and things like that in the abstract this far out," Brown said. "I think that it would be difficult.

"I am aware there are risks to being a diplomat. I think the benefits far outweigh the dangers."

For more information on the Pickering Fellowship, visit the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Web site.

Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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