School of International Affairs founding professor to retire

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Ambassador Dennis Jett, a professor of international affairs and founding faculty of the School of International Affairs (SIA), will retire July 1 after 17 years at Penn State. He will receive emeritus status, pending final University approval this summer.

Jett—who taught “Foundations of Diplomacy and International Relations Theory,” a core course within SIA—has the unique distinction of having taught every SIA student since the school launched in 2008.

“It has been an honor to have been a faculty member of SIA since its inception and to have had the opportunity to help hundreds of students prepare themselves for careers in international affairs and other fields,” Jett said. “I know they will go on to make the world a better place and I hope they will stay connected to SIA as I will.”

Toward the end of this spring semester, SIA hosted a farewell celebration for Jett, where fellow faculty and staff presented him with a Penn State rocking chair and a scrapbook filled with photos of his time at SIA and personal messages from many faculty, staff, students, and alumni—a testament to his significant impact on students, colleagues, and the SIA program as a whole.

“Dennis Jett has been central to the development of the School of International Affairs since its founding,” said Dr. Mitchell Smith, SIA director and professor of international affairs. “He brought to SIA an unparalleled combination of diplomatic experience at the highest level along with academic experience in international affairs education. Ambassador Jett has had an enormously positive influence on an entire generation of students. I routinely encounter alumni who speak about his formative impact on their acquisition of critical skills and their careers.”

Smith added, “As SIA Director, I have developed a deep admiration for Ambassador Jett’s talent, experience, and willingness to contribute to the student experience at SIA – as well as his sense of humor. Faculty, students, and staff will miss his presence, but I know he will continue to be engaged with SIA, and we will draw on his expertise in the years ahead.”

Some of Jett’s many notable accomplishments during his tenure at SIA include:

• Publishing American Ambassadors: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Diplomats (2015; second edition published in 2021); and The Iran Nuclear Deal (2017);
• Publishing second edition of Why Peacekeeping Fails (2019);
• Receiving a 2016 Fulbright Fellowship to teach and conduct research at Tel Aviv University;
• Coordinating an annual crisis simulation exercise in collaboration with the U.S. Army War College;
• Leading a study abroad program to Peru in spring 2019;
• Serving as SIA's representative to the Faculty Senate throughout his time at SIA; and
• Being recognized with the Penn State Honorary Alumni Award for his significant impact on the University.

Prior to joining Penn State, Jett had a distinguished career in the Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State—spanning 28 years and three continents. His international affairs career began in 1973, when he was a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He served as science attaché in Tel Aviv as well as a number of positions in the State Department.

In 1989, he became the deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Malawi, where he assisted in the response to an influx of more than 500,000 Mozambican refugees. He was then sent to be deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Liberia shortly before the start of the civil war in that country. For his service in Liberia during this tumultuous time, he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award for “exceptional service, superb leadership, keen perception and adroitness in the formulation and execution of U.S. foreign policy.”

Jett then became special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for Africa policy during the first six months of the Clinton Administration. He went on to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Mozambique (1993-1996) and Peru (1996-1999).

As ambassador to Mozambique, he helped bring about the successful conclusion of one of the world’s largest peacekeeping operations, enabling the country to hold its first democratic elections. Because of his work there, he received the American Foreign Service Association’s Christian Herter Award for dissent.

He was subsequently appointed U.S. ambassador to Peru, where he managed the second largest aid program in Latin America. He also helped to open Peru’s markets to U.S. companies, receiving the Charles Cobb Award for those efforts. For his efforts to help strengthen Peru’s democracy, he was subsequently awarded the Order of the Sun of Peru by the Peruvian government in 2001, as well as awards from the Lima daily newspaper La Republica and Frequencia Latina, Channel 2 television.

Professor Jett was the Diplomat in Residence at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia from 1999-2000, where he led election observation missions to Venezuela and Guatemala and conflict resolution efforts between Uganda and Sudan.

Upon his retirement from the State Department in 2000, he joined the University of Florida as dean of the International Center and a faculty member in the political science department, holding those positions until he joined Penn State in 2008 to help launch the School of International Affairs.

Ambassador Jett Through the Years at SIA