ASU honors student receives US Department of State fellowship to Germany

Jordan Harb, a senior global studies and Arabic major in Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University, is making connections and learning about international affairs as a member of this year’s cohort for the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) for Young Professionals program in Germany.

The joint program of the German Bundestag and U.S. Congress is administered through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and provides 75 American and 75 German young leaders between the ages of 18 and 24 the opportunity to spend one year in each other’s countries for academic, professional and cultural exchange.

The 2023–24 cohort includes young professionals in career fields including soil science, UX design, education, culinary arts, public health, museum curation, public policy and chemical engineering.

Throughout the application process, Harb worked closely with advisors in the Lorraine W. Frank Office of National Scholarships Advisement, which promotes and helps ASU students apply for major external fellowships and awards. This past summer, Harb also participated in the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute Fellowship Program at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

Harb, whose background is in nonprofit management, government relations and public policy, will take intensive German language classes in Saarbrücken for several months, attend courses at the Willi Brandt School of Public Policy in Erfurt for a semester, and then be placed in an internship. 

He recently was among a group of American CBYX participants that visited the U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt, where they were welcomed by Principal Officer and Consul General Norman Thatcher Scharpf.

“I am incredibly excited to be a part of this diplomatic exchange program,” Harb said.

Harb has significant experience in community organizing and service, public policy and project management.

In addition to his studies at ASU, he currently is director of development at Evergreen Fund, where he raises funds for MyAlyce, a startup aimed at reducing overdose deaths during inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation treatment. Last year, he was a policy associate and lobbyist at Creosote Partners, an Arizona-based lobbying firm.

He has also served as a field intern for the Maricopa County Democratic Party, a youth organizer for American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and an intern for Save Our Schools Arizona. He was a member of the Arizonans For Gun Safety Board and worked as state director and national field director for March For Our Lives Arizona, a policy consultant for the Arizona Department of Education and a humanitarian aid worker for Salam LDAC in Beqaa, Lebanon.

Harb said that as a CBYX participant, he hopes to become proficient in German and expand upon his government and diplomatic interests.

“I want to work in public policy and diplomacy. This (CBYX) exposes me to programming at the U.S. State Department, along with classes at one of the best policy schools in Germany. I aim to use this to grow my knowledge of European affairs and trans-Atlantic relations,” he said. 

Students who are interested in applying for the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) for Young Professionals, the PPIA Junior Summer Institutes, or any major external fellowship should visit https://onsa.asu.edu/info-sessions for an overview of upcoming information sessions and workshops.