Globe Trotter
Marcia Bernicat ’75 represents U.S. at home and abroad
By Kate Helm
Photography by David W. Coulter
Growing up near an Army base, Marcia Bernicat ’75 always knew she wanted to travel. The history graduate found her niche in the Foreign Service, representing the U.S. at home and abroad since 1981.
Currently based in Washington, D.C., Bernicat is office director
for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives,  and Bhutan.
“The country desks are the basic organization liaison between
[U.S.] embassies in the field and the State Department, as well as those countries’ embassies here in Washington,” she explains. “We act as ‘traffic cops’ to make sure that issues are being dealt with. Our base responsibility is for anything that affects that bilateral relationship.”
Bernicat earned a master’s at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in 1980. An internship in Liberia in 1979 sold her
on a career in the field.
“I was assigned to the economics section at the embassy in Monrovia,” she recalls. “Skylab [America’s first experimental space station] fell
that summer—literally fell from the sky—and Liberia was in the path
of its trajectory. So, they sent the intern in to tell the government it might fall on them. I came home and said, ‘Sign me up.’ It was really hands-on from the beginning.”
Bernicat’s overseas tours have included Mali, Morocco, Malawi, Barbados, India, and France. In Washington, she previously served
as special assistant to former Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead. She will begin a new assignment in summer 2008.
Although it can be a challenge to change jobs, homes, her children’s schools, and sometimes even the language she’s working in every
three years, Bernicat says the opportunity to interact with people
from around the world far outweighs the demands.
“Diplomacy depends on people-to-people contact, regardless of the policy or country you’re working with,” she says. “It’s the ability to understand the culture and political imperatives of the country as well as the personal attributes of your counterpart in order to tell [the host country] what the U.S. is trying to do and to influence U.S. policy to take into account the needs of the host country. I was involved with small-term development that brought water to Mali, discussed human rights in India using the U.S. civil rights movement as a model, and comforted employees dying of AIDS in Malawi.”
Bernicat believes her undergraduate years gave her valuable exposure to different cultures and helped her develop essential leadership skills. Contemporary history courses gave a solid grounding in international relations and political science. She was a member of international
student organizations and took on leadership positions with
Association of Black Collegians.
Last February, Bernicat delivered the keynote address at the annual Lafayette Leadership Institute and led a workshop.
“Until last spring, I hadn’t been back on campus in over 20 years —mostly because my work kept me out of the country,” she says.
“I saw the Leadership Institute develop and said, ‘I really want to participate.’ I’m so glad I did. I do feel it’s important. I was reconnecting and I really enjoyed meeting some of the other
women alums.”
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