Each year, the Kennedy Center, with the support of an endowment established by V Jordan and Patricia N. Tanner, awards scholarships to two BYU students who are committed to pursuing a career in diplomacy. The 2025–2026 Diplomacy Scholarship recipients, Estelle Robbins and Ben Goetsch, each received $5,000 to support their academic goals.
Estelle Robbins is pursuing a B.A. in Chinese Studies at BYU, with a concentration in international relations and public diplomacy. In 2024, she served as a Press and Public Diplomacy Intern at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and also supported government relations and international outreach with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She’s been involved in BYU’s Model United Nations team for several years, having served as a Teaching Assistant, Committee Chair at the New York City Conference, and Student Delegate. Last summer, she completed a study abroad in Taiwan to further her Mandarin skills.
Her future professional goals are to build a career in international diplomacy, where she can continue connecting cultures and shaping global dialogue. So when she saw a poster for the Diplomacy Scholarship in the Kennedy Center, she says, she was “really intrigued by the title alone, based on my desire to be a part of international diplomacy.”
Receiving the scholarship, she says, will help her achieve her goals to work in the multilateral sphere with the International Olympic Committee and then become a Foreign Service Officer.
To any students interested in applying for the Diplomacy Scholarship in the future, she recommends, “Look for any ways to get involved with diplomatic adjacent organizations. I believe there are so many more opportunities than people realize. Most of my experiences have been created for me and didn't previously exist, which only serves to emphasize the point of encouraging people to think really creatively about opportunities, especially because nearly every field, company, organization, and entity has some sort of international facet which requires skills of diplomacy.”
Ben Goetsch received the Diplomacy Scholarship for fall semester 2025, then graduated in December 2025. The scholarship, he says, “helped me to further prepare for my future by helping me cover the costs to finish my degree at BYU.”
Ben was a Political Science Major with an International Strategy and Diplomacy emphasis. He also minored in Spanish, getting a chance to apply those language skills when he was a Spanish-language intern at the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. and in his position as a program coordinator for BYU LEAD, directing Spanish-language volunteer interpretation programs for immigrant children in Utah.
He was a member of the BYU Model United Nations team and a club officer in the Foreign Service Student Organization, which is where he first heard of the Diplomacy Scholarship. The scholarship helped him toward his professional goals, which, he says, include “attending law school, studying international law and conflict resolution, and potentially trying to join the U.S. Foreign Service.”
Speaking to students who are considering applying for the Diplomacy Scholarship, he encourages, “Take advantage of experiential learning opportunities! I've had the chance to study abroad, participate in the Washington Seminar, and be in Model UN. All of these opportunities helped me find my passion for international peacemaking and deeply enriched my experience at BYU.”
Learn more about this scholarship, including how to apply, by clicking here.