3. Columbia in the World Today

Columbia today is the heir of this proud history and a vigorous participant in the processes of globalization that I have described. But our orientation is also shaped quite specifically by the end of the cold war. The collapse of Soviet communism, even as it changed the lives of millions of people from Berlin to Moscow, sent shock waves into institutions of international learning and research around the world.

SIPA and Our Regional Institutes

Diplomats from the United States, China, and South and North Korea at the conclusion of meetings at SIPA

Columbia was prepared. Our acclaimed regional institutes moved further into issues of global concern--international urban affairs, immigration, conflict resolution, and many more. New lines of communication and collaboration were established with scholars in countries once behind the Iron Curtain. As research more and more came to ignore national borders, the walls between traditional disciplines continued to erode.

For a decade the Harriman Institute focused on the Soviet Union; today, with its partner, the East Central European Center (formerly the Institute on East Central Europe), it covers the now independent republics of the former USSR, Eurasia, and East Central Europe, composed of the countries lying between Germany and the former Soviet Union, and between the Baltic and Aegean Seas.

Just as important as new geographical jurisdiction is the development of post-Soviet research programs for the study of social movements and processes. New approaches to the area, studying the societies and communities from new perspectives, benefit all of our area studies programs. One salient instance is cited by Vice President for Arts and Sciences David H. Cohen: the recent revitalization of anthropology at the University, with the result that faculty from this department are active in all of the regional institutes. A striking example is the way in which recent faculty appointments in anthropology have strengthened the Southern Asian Institute: Professor of Anthropology E. Valentine Daniel, an expert on Sri Lanka and a scholar in philosophy, was appointed director of the Institute; Professor Nicholas B. Dirks, the current chair of anthropology, is an expert on India; and Professor of Anthropology Sherry B. Ortner is a specialist on Nepal as well as urban anthropology.

In 1996, I was pleased to appoint Professor of Political Science Lisa S. Anderson '76SIPA '77 '81GSAS, then chair of the Political Science Department and previously director of the Middle East Institute, as dean of the School of International and Public Affairs for many reasons, not least for her astute insights into the transformed world for which SIPA prepares its graduates.

The dramatic changes in Europe led to a faculty committee--the new Europe Task Force, chaired by Ira I. Katznelson '66C, the Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History--charged by Dean Anderson with considering how Columbia can best organize to foster European studies in the coming decades, retaining the excellence already achieved and positioning the University to realize new opportunities.

Dr. Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Energy Secretary and former U.S. Representative to the U.N. Bill Richardson (left) with President George Rupp

"Our work," Professor Katznelson reports, "has been shaped by the conviction that Europe is best considered an entity whose boundaries are flexible and porous, not singular or closed." The faculty panel has focused on Europe as "a junction linking across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and Asia." It views Europe as defined not by geography and the territorial boundaries of the cold war but by "movements of ideas, people, capital, arms, and power transcending traditional boundaries."

Among the people moving across old borders will be SIPA graduates, who are being prepared to hold management positions in many regions during the course of their careers. They will need globally transportable skills and knowledge. In addition to area studies and language proficiency, SIPA students working toward the Master of International Affairs (M.I.A.) degree pursue functional concentrations in economic and political development, environmental policy studies, human rights and humanitarian affairs, international economic policy, international finance and business, international media and communications, or international security policy.

Dean Anderson reports that fewer than half of SIPA graduates are entering the public sector. They are nonetheless, the faculty believes, very much committed to making the world a better place. Many of them are practical idealists convinced that, in today's world, more often than not they can translate their good intentions into reality through, first, mastering the skills and knowledge taught at SIPA, and then going to work in the private international sector.

SIPA students enroll in more than a thousand courses throughout the University, including the study of languages. Students in the M.I.A. program must demonstrate proficiency in a language appropriate to the area of specialization. The regional institutes have their own language requirement: for example, Spanish and Portuguese for the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies; Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tibetan, or Urdu for the Southern Asian Institute. More than forty languages are offered to international affairs scholars. The Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, for instance, offers ten languages, from ancient Akkadian to modern Turkish.

The average age of SIPA students is 27. Many have already had hands-on experience with world affairs. Typically, SIPA students have strong activist commitments.

Alumni are enthusiastic about SIPA preparation. White House NBC correspondent Claire Shipman '86C '94SIPA, who received the John Jay Award from Columbia College last spring, came back to finish her SIPA degree in l994 after six years in the field, including a long stint in Moscow covering the events that led to the end of the cold war. "I'm a huge fan of Columbia," she says. "What a wonderful place to study!"

Dean Lisa Anderson welcomes participants to one of SIPA's many conferences on the Mideast and Gulf region. To the right is Professor Gary Sick, an authority on Iran and head of the Persian Gulf 2000 project at Columbia.

The M.I.A. and M.P.A. programs, Shipman says, "used to be viewed as highly specialized, almost exotic. Now they've become broad, widely usable credentials--ideal qualifications for someone who's a Renaissance person, running from the public sector to the private sector, doing international business or urban planning."

SIPA's original reputation, in the late 1940s and the 1950s, was as a nurturer of academic careers. Beginning in the 1960s, students were encouraged to prepare for professional international careers as well, becoming knowledgeable policy analysts and policy makers for the diplomatic services. Then, in the 1970s, the curriculum was reshaped to combine professional skills, traditional disciplines, and area studies in a distinctive multidisciplinary graduate program.

One of SIPA's unique strengths is the range and quality of the institutes and centers it houses. All of the regional institutes are designated National Resource Centers by the federal government, more than any other university. The open secret to the institutes' greatness is their ability to draw distinguished faculty from across the University. For example, the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies is served by faculty from five Columbia schools (Business, Public Health, Law, Arts, and Architecture), ten departments, and Teachers College.

The institutes, governed by University-wide faculty, advance SIPA's multidisciplinary studies of societies and support international education in Columbia College, General Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and the professional schools. In addition to the Latin American and Iberian Institute, and the two oldest, and best known, of the institutes--the Harriman (originally the Russian) and the East Asian--Columbia is proud to possess the Southern Asian Institute, the Institute of African Studies, the Middle East Institute, and the Institute on Western Europe.

When I became president of Columbia six years ago, a major priority I set was the enhancement of multidisciplinary programs so that complementary strengths in different schools and departments could be drawn upon to improve learning and research. The value of that approach was underscored for me once again when I met last year with the forty-four diverse and highly interesting midcareer professionals from thirty-three nations (most in difficult straits) who were graduating from the Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM). The PEPM is a successful collaborative effort, with scholarship help from the government of Japan and the World Bank, bringing together the resources of SIPA, the Graduate School of Business, and the department of economics.

NBC White House correspondent Claire Shipman '86C '94SIPA

As SIPA connects with other schools and institutions, it enriches its curriculum for the future. Collaborative programs reach out to Prague, Budapest, and Bogota. Credit toward the M.I.A. may be earned at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. On campus, SIPA is strengthening its ties to the professional schools and the language and culture departments. Joint degree programs link SIPA with the School of Public Health (M.I.A.-M.P.H.), the Business School (M.I.A.-M.B.A.), the School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning (M.I.A.-M.S. in urban planning), the Law School and the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law (M.I.A.-J.D.), and the Journalism School, where, for example, a journalist specializing in Eastern Europe could take a combined program from the Journalism School and the Harriman Institute.

Meanwhile, the new Center for Comparative Literature and Society is establishing new relationships with the regional institutes. The center, established last year, is an important effort to make available to the institutes a literature-focused study of language. At the same time, knowledge produced by area studies will benefit comparative literature. The new center represents a major rethinking of the humanities in relation to area studies and the social sciences.

Another noteworthy cooperative enterprise: the Center for Urban Research and Policy at SIPA, in collaboration with the Habitat Project of the United Nations, is developing a database of the best practices in urban policy around the world, with the ultimate goal of bringing city administrators together from near and mostly far to learn from each other how municipal governments are attacking urban problems.

These are but a few of the bright signs that confirm my confidence in the remarkable performance of SIPA and the regional institutes as they make the transition into the next century.