In a statement released on Oct 4 by the U.S. Department of State, Robert Morris University senior Dillan Gaydos was named one of the 46 foreign affairs coordinators that will be located across 34 different campuses in the United States.

The statement reads, “The mission of the Foreign Affairs Campus Coordinator Program (FACC) is to establish outreach with colleges and universities throughout the United States to better inform the academic community about U.S. foreign policy priorities.”

Gaydos, who is already heavily involved on campus including his role as Lead Community Advisor for the RMU Office of Residence Life, is also greatly involved in the school’s international community. Gaydos serves as the Community Advisor for the Global Village in Yorktown Hall, where many of the school’s international students live and is also a student worker at the Center for Global Engagement at RMU.

“I’m pretty honored,” said Gaydos. “It’s the U.S. government who’s allowing me to do this position and allowing me to talk about what we do. Especially since I get to talk a lot about my experience working with the Department of State.”

Gaydos’s previous role with the Department of State was working as the Young African Leaders Initiative Intern. This initiative was started by President Barack Obama and is now continued by President Donald Trump, in which Gaydos acted as a liason to members of this program from across the African continent. Additionally, Gaydos spent time interacting with many senior government officials and even wrote scripts for special advisor to the president Ivanka Trump.

“It was really to be hands on and working in diplomacy,” said Gaydos, “which is not something I thought I would be doing at 21 years old.”

With the help of the Bureau of Public Affairs, the job of Gaydos and his fellow coordinators is to create outreach activities, workshops and roundtables to help the academic community better understand the foreign policy priorities of the United States government, specifically on how they protect the interests of American citizens around the world.

“This program helps us engage with students across the country,” said Kathryn Wellner, senior advisor for the State Department’s Office of Public Engagement, in the statement released today. “We hope students will consider a career in diplomacy which provides an incredible way to serve our country while advancing our mission at embassies and consulates around the world.”

In his new role, Gaydos is working on bringing in diplomat-in-residence Dale Giovengo, a foreign service specialist who has worked on embassy operations in France, Albania, Kuwait, Pakistan, Switzerland and Iraq.

Giovengo will be coming to campus on Oct. 24 to talk about his experiences as well as future opportunities for students in the Department of State.