Batten's Language in Policy (LIP) student organization hosted Daniel Reifsnyder in the Great Hall this week for Batten Hour. Reifsnyder teaches multilateral environmental negotiations at Batten, and is best known for co-chairing the U.N. negotiations which led to the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015. His 23 years of experience as a career member of the Senior Executive Service included helping negotiate both the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. 

Reifsnyder’s earned his undergraduate degree from Trinity College, his master’s in Russian studies from Georgetown University, his Ph.D. in international relations from Tufts University and his law degree from George Washington University. He has received numerous awards, including three Presidential Rank Awards, the EPA’s Ozone Layer Protection Award and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s Leadership Award.

Reifsnyder’s talk focused on his career progression, sharing with students and others in the audience his reflections on a career in foreign service and the benefits of being fluent in several languages. His 40-year federal service career culminated in his most recent role as deputy assistant secretary of environment in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State, but his journey began long before that as an 11-year-old boy traveling from Texas to Chihuahua, Mexico.

“I was so fascinated to see that people were speaking this other language,” recalled Reifsnyder, who said he wondered at the time if there was some sort of book that would teach him, so he started trying to learn some Spanish.

His attraction to language really took hold when he was in college and read Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast with the line, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

So, he went to Paris and lived with a French family for a year, which was a lifechanging experience. “I became so interested in languages and I wanted to come home and learn even more languages,” he said.

Reifsnyder went on to take Russian in college and, after graduation, he enrolled in a Russian studies program at Georgetown University, spending a summer in Leningrad. Returning to the U.S., he was offered a job with the National Security Agency, but turned it down and accepted a position with the National Marine Fishery Service working on the USSR Fisheries Claims Board.

Leaving that position, Reifsnyder went on to law school at George Washington University and then to the State Department, initially working on fisheries and then science and technology issues. He spoke of working on bilateral agreements in Moscow and China, then working in the Congo which eventually led to his work on the Paris climate talks.

Working with different cultures, Reifsnyder spoke about the importance of understanding other points of view, including when he advocated for an advance trip to Russia prior to climate talks out of respect.

“One thing you never ever want to do in terms of the Russians is ignore them. We needed to go to Russia and meet with the head of their delegation, and we needed to pay sufficient obeisance.”

This proved a successful strategy, as there were no issues with Russia during the climate talks. Reifsnyder shared other anecdotes and lessons he’s learned over the years  working cross- culturally.

1. The younger you learn other languages, the better. Your mind is more flexible, and you absorb much more.
2. When choosing a life of working abroad, one path is to establish your functional specialty first. It’s great to be fluent in more than one language, but by establishing your career focus first,  being multi-lingual makes you even more employable and versatile.
3. Professional interpreters have some of the most interesting lives. For those who may have an interest in making language the main focus of a career as opposed to an enhancement, interpreter positions are most often contractor positions including those at the Department of State. Additionally, interpreters have a strong union in the U.S. and don’t work much overtime.
4. You don't need to speak every language in the world. If you speak one or two languages fairly well, that will suffice and you will get credit from other people for speaking more than your native tongue.
5. In conversation with someone whose native tongue is not English, it helps to speak the other language first… except with Russians, in which case, start off speaking English, and as soon as you establish that you're not Russian, they'll speak Russian with you.
6. When making a statement at the United Nations or other such international body, it’s a good idea to print and give your comments to interpreters ahead of time. Much less will be lost in translation.
7. People from other countries tend to know more about Americans than we do about them. When negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, Reifsnyder learned that other countries, knowing U.S. positions, will triangulate off the U.S. to gain advantage. 
8. You are more approachable if you don't travel in a bubble. If you are apart from a group of Americans, others are more likely to approach to talk to you. It's rewarding to hear their views directly.
9. Learning the basics of another language while in your own country takes perhaps a year or two.  But there’s no substitute for spending time in the country where they speak the language. One year will help cement things; two years abroad is the perfect scenario.

Reifsnyder’s advice comes from years of experience working with people from all over the world. Learning other languages and cultures has made him successful in a career that he now illustrates for students in his Batten classroom.

Batten LIP has created a document outlining language learning resources at UVA, Charlottesville and beyond and can be found here.