Rice student Peter Barth selected for DACOR Bacon House Foundation fellowship

Rice University graduate student Peter Barth, currently enrolled in the Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program, has been selected to receive a DACOR (Diplomat and Consular Officers, Retired) Bacon House Foundation fellowship totaling $10,000.

Peter Barth

The award was established to encourage and assist American students in advanced study of international affairs at recognized institutions of higher learning in the U.S. The awards are given primarily on the basis of academic excellence. Award recipients are expected to have an expressed interest in pursuing some aspect of international affairs, such as a language, conflict resolution, international economics or environmental science.

Barth, a native of Manchester-by-the Sea, Mass., was required to submit a 600-word essay about his qualifications for the award, a transcript and a curriculum vita. He traveled to Washington, D.C. for an interview for the fellowship. The award will fund the remainder of Barth’s Rice graduate education. He received a B.A. in English from Rice in 2015.

“I feel honored and very grateful to have received this fellowship,” said Barth. “I’m pursuing a career in the federal government, most likely the State Department, where I hope to apply some of the skills I’ve developed in my time here at Rice to study issues related to U.S. foreign policy in Latin America.”

Barth’s receipt of the fellowship is a testament to the truly high caliber of the MGA students and faculty, said Mark Jones, the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies at Rice and the MGA program director.

“This honor underscores the MGA program’s rapidly rising status as one of the country’s leading programs for the study of global affairs, where students learn within an institution that serves as a bridge between the world of ideas and the world of action,” Jones said.

The DACOR Bacon House Foundation promotes public understanding of international affairs and diplomacy through scholarships, lectures, publications and conferences and preserves the historic DACOR Bacon House in Washington, D.C., as a testament to America’s diplomatic heritage.

For more information on the fellowship, visit http://dacorbacon.org/. For more information on Rice’s MGA program, visit http://mga.rice.edu/.