Former U.S. Ambassadors Bring Global Experience to USC Students

Students in PUBD 369: Public Diplomacy and Global Citizenship at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism had a rare opportunity this spring: hearing directly from former United States ambassadors whose careers have shaped diplomacy, international development, education, security cooperation, and cultural exchange across the globe.

The course, taught by CPD Faculty Fellow Nicholas Cull and U.S. Public Diplomat in Residence Joshua Shen, brought four diplomats into the classroom to discuss the realities of representing the United States abroad and the vital importance of public diplomacy.

Among the diplomats who visited the class was J. Steven Rhodes, who served as U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe under President George H. W. Bush. During his tenure, Amb. Rhodes oversaw development and international cooperation initiatives between the U.S. and Zimbabwe, including an Overseas Private Investment Corporation agreement and a treaty establishing the Peace Corps presence in the country. In his prior role in the Reagan White House, Amb. Rhodes is credited for helping pass the bill that established the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Holiday.

Students also heard from Candace Bond, who served as U.S. ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago from 2022 to 2025. Amb. Bond focused heavily on strengthening economic cooperation, citizen security, educational exchange, and cultural diplomacy between the two nations. Her embassy tenure emphasized people-to-people diplomacy, regional security cooperation, and education initiatives designed to deepen long-term ties between the United States and Trinidad and Tobago.

Another featured speaker was Shefali Razdan Duggal, who served as ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 2022 to 2025 and became the first person of color to hold the position. During her ambassadorship, she worked to deepen the historic U.S.-Dutch alliance across diplomacy, culture, and democratic cooperation. Born in India and raised in the United States, she spoke about diplomacy through the lens of identity, empathy, and representation.

The class also welcomed Noah Mamet, who served as U.S. ambassador to Argentina from 2015 to 2017 under President Barack Obama. Amb. Mamet focused much of his diplomatic work on rebuilding bilateral ties between the United States and Argentina through educational exchange, renewable energy cooperation, entrepreneurship, and science and technology partnerships. During his tenure, he helped create the Friends of Fulbright scholarship program for Argentine students and launched initiatives that brought hundreds of Argentine educators to UCLA for professional development programs.

For students in PUBD 369, the ambassador visits transformed diplomacy from an abstract subject into a lived experience. The ambassador guests discussed negotiations, leadership, cultural understanding, and the personal dimensions of representing the United States overseas.

“Our ambassadors have each answered the call to global citizenship in their own way, and dramatized the core values of that citizenship in a way that no reading or theoretical discourse could,” Professor Cull said. “As the semester ended student after student contacted Josh Shen and I to thank us for the class and its many guests, and to indicate that they felt a personal flame of global citizenship had been successfully lit.”

View more photos from the Ambassadors' visits on our Flickr Page.