Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 Office of Public Information (212) 854-5573
Columbia University is helping Poland develop a new corps of economists who can assist post-communist European nations establish free-market systems.
With $2 million in new funding added to $1 million in founding grants previously received, Columbia's Institute on East Central Europe has established two cooperative programs at the University of Warsaw.
One, the Warsaw University/Columbia University Cooperative Program in Economics, was launched in 1992 to develop and implement a modern curriculum of university-level education in economics. A corollary program, created this year, is the Central and East European Economic Research Center, designed to encourage research and re-establish economics as an academic discipline in post-communist countries of the region.
Grants for both were made by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Open Society Institute's Higher Education Support Program. The research center received additional support from the Ford Foundation.
John Micgiel, director of the Institute on East Central Europe and adjunct professor of international affairs, said in announcing the $2 million in new awards: "Columbia's outstanding faculty with its strength in two fields of special interest to Warsaw University, microeconomics and international economics, and expertise in the economic transition from socialist to free market economies, made the university the natural choice to lead these initiatives."
Now entering its fourth year, the Cooperative Program in Economics operates as an honors program for undergraduates, admitting 25 Warsaw University students annually. Emphasis is placed on developing skills that are essential for practical, applied economics, such as economic analysis, quantitative methods and the application of theories to empirical inquiry. Teaching staff for the Cooperative Program in Economics is recruited competitively under the guidance of Stanislaw Wellisz, the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Economics at Columbia.
The Central and East European Economic Research Center will focus on problems that arise in connection with the political and economic changes occurring in the region and its reintegration into the European and world economic systems. A fellowship competition is under way for pre- and post-doctoral grants and research fellowships to university faculty members from post-communist countries in the region. The aim of the fellowship program is to improve the skills of current and prospective faculty in the region, encourage the return of expatriate scholars and help retain newly trained scholars, and strengthen the various English-language economics programs operating in the Warsaw region.
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