3. Columbia in the World Today

The International Magnet

"Diversity," says Rashid Siahpoosh '99B, "that's Columbia's number one asset. When they say they want diversity, they mean it."

We do mean it. And diversity begets more diversity. International students flock to Columbia because of our growing reputation as a university that values diverse cultures, languages, and histories. We welcome students from abroad not simply for the opportunity to play a critical role in their education, but because we all stand to benefit from direct knowledge of each other.

Forty-five years ago, Columbia was the only university in America to enroll more than a thousand foreign students. Last year we enrolled more than triple that number: 3,350 international students, 16 percent of the student body, came to Columbia from 144 countries. Richard B. Tudisco '69C, associate provost and director of our International Students and Scholars Office, reports that students from the People's Republic of China remained Columbia's largest foreign nationality group, followed by Japan, Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Germany, and India.

Not surprisingly, 40 percent of the SIPA student body is international. They come from ninety different countries. Ours is the most internationalized M.I.A. program in the United States.

Across the board in Columbia's master's degree and Ph.D. programs the proportion of international students is also 40 percent. In the Graduate Legal Studies program, close to 90 percent of the students are international. More than a thousand foreign students are enrolled in GSAS. In the Business School, 37 percent of the students (and 39 percent of the faculty) were born outside of the United States, representing sixty countries and fifty languages. At the Graduate School of Journalism, international student enrollment has doubled in recent years.

Undergraduates at the School of General Studies (GS) come from seventy countries. GS, led by Dean Peter J. Awn, is strengthening it traditional role as an academic home for both international students and new immigrants.

Even beyond those thousands of undergraduate and graduate students who come to Columbia from abroad, of great significance to education in this vibrant era of globalization is our good fortune to have faculty, visiting scholars, and research staff from throughout the world: 35 percent of Columbia's teachers and researchers were born abroad.

More important are the remarkable individuals those numbers represent. Last spring we held a Commencement reception for international students and their families. Among the more than eight hundred graduating students were Tiffany T. Chen '99SIPA of Taiwan and Hailin Lou '99C of China, a Columbia College Fu Scholar. Both students had completed course work for four degrees.

The vast majority of international students at Columbia are extraordinarily productive, energetic, bright, ambitious, and highly motivated. Their eagerness for education is impressive, as is their ability to recognize strengths and weaknesses both in their own countries and in this one. As a result, we learn from international students not only about their lands but also, through their eyes, about our own.

Four campus language and cultural houses sponsor educational and social activities: Casa Hispánica, home of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese; Casa Italiana, now the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America; Deutsches Haus, center for German language and culture; and La Maison Française, the oldest single-language cultural and study center at an American university. In addition, Special Interest Housing suites bring faculty and students together for events related to specific themes and shared interests.

It is worth noting that ethnic food choices are on the increase in University dining halls. Menus have been broadened and international cuisine highlighted. Columbia celebrates the global diversity of our University and our city by collaborating with local ethnic restaurants in the guest chef program and with such special features as Korean and Japanese sushi night and theme menus for Chinese New Year and Cinco de Mayo.

Vice President Mark Burstein reports that available outreach programs for spouses of students from abroad now include counseling, primary care benefits, and nutrition evaluation. Columbia makes available to all students, as well as their spouses and children, health insurance that is valid anywhere in the world. The University partners with lending agencies that provide financing options to international students at the lowest interest rates and fees. Over the past two years, loans to international students have totaled $3 million.

The international atmosphere of the Columbia campus is all-pervasive. No single element assumes unique importance. Students in this University become quickly aware, through hundreds of sights and sounds each day, that they are part of the larger world.

Passersby speak in languages and accents that arriving students will soon find familiar. Posters urge enlistment in efforts to combat world hunger and protect human rights. There is a biannual International Crafts Fair held on Low Plaza, crowded with products from Guyana, Guatemala, and countries all over the globe.

Study abroad programs attract substantial interest, even as visiting scholars arrive from abroad to enrich the intellectual life of our campus. Human rights advocates and religious leaders from Europe and the former Soviet Union were brought to campus last year as visiting scholars by the Project on Religion, Human Rights, and Religious Freedom, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. A grant from the Ford Foundation enabled the Public Interest Law Initiative for Transitional Societies to bring over public interest fellows from grassroots human rights organizations for courses in human rights and constitutional law. Generous support from Arnold A. Saltzman '36C, a loyal friend and thoughtful benefactor whose own professional accomplishments include diplomatic assignments in the former Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union, Austria, and Latin America, will assure visits from policy makers in those regions.

Research park executives, biotechnology center directors, and biotechnology entrepreneurs from Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom participated in BioParks, an international conference hosted by Columbia and the Audubon Biomedical Science and Technology Park.

Chinese visitors were both luminous and plentiful. A dozen scholars from China and Taiwan--brought here by the Center for Chinese Legal Studies, the Center for the Study of Human Rights, and the East Asian Institute--explored complex issues of constitutional and human rights law. Wang Hui of the National Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing was among the Chinese scholars who participated in a major conference on the origins of modern China sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. The Business School hosted Yiping Huang, holder of the General Mills International Visiting Professorship and director of the China Economy Program at the Australian National University. Three professors from Peking Union Medical College, China's most prestigious medical school, paid an extended visit to Columbia to study the P&S curriculum. A Chinese delegation visited the Schapiro Center for Engineering and Physical Science Research to honor Ponisseril Somasundaran, the La von D. Krumb Professor of Mineral Engineering, as the newest member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the first Columbian to be so honored.

Collaborators from China, England, France, India, Japan, and Korea joined Health Sciences scholarly resources personnel in developing a Web-based tool that integrates international bibliographic and image databases in complementary and alternative medicine, while Columbia Libraries personnel worked with their counterparts at First Moscow Medical School on access to Medline and other sources of information.

Similar delegations, visiting scholars, cultural programs, and faculty exchanges are regular occurrences with other Asian, European, African, and Latin American countries, as indicated in these examples drawn from a multitude of such occasions:

• The inaugural conference of the Law School's European Legal Studies Center, in cooperation with the University of Bonn, drew scholars from the University of Würzburg, the College of Europe at Bruges, and the University of Neuchâtel.
• At the Journalism School, Japanese journalists conducted research at Columbia on Mobil Oil Research Fellowships while Korean journalists were researching through Sungkok Research Fellowships.
• An exchange program with the University of Barcelona brought four postdoctoral students to our School of Dental and Oral Surgery.
• The School of the Arts, in its annual program with the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden, welcomed an emerging German artist to live and work in the rich cultural environment of Columbia and New York City.
• Maestro Yuri Temirkanov and players from the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra appeared at a conference examining Russian politics and culture through the life and music of Dmitri Shostakovich, cosponsored by the Harriman Institute and the Manhattan School of Music.
• An African trade forum hosted by Congressman Charles Rangel '87HON, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Constituency for Africa brought diplomats from Uganda, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.