School of International and Public Affairs

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School of International and Public Affairs

Established	1946
School type	Private
Dean	Lisa Anderson
Location	New York, New York, USA
Enrollment	ca. 1,200
Homepage	www.sipa.columbia.edu

The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University is a public policy school and one of the most prestigious schools of international affairs and/or public affairs in the United States, and internationally.

1 Degree Programs
2 International Affairs Building
3 Growth and Tradition
4 Publications
5 Noteworthy alumni
6 Noteworthy faculty
7 Noteworthy former international fellows
8 External links

[edit] Degree Programs

SIPA provides an education that enables its graduates to function wisely and effectively in a variety of professional settings – in government, business, finance, media, the nonprofit sector and international organizations. The school currently offers six degree programs and dual degree programs.

Master of International Affairs Program (MIA)

Master of Public Administration Program (MPA)

Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM)

Executive Master of Public Policy and Administration (EMPA)

MPA in Environmental Science and Policy

Ph.D. Program in Sustainable Development

Dual Degree Programs

[edit] International Affairs Building

International Affairs Building

The School of International and Public Affairs is housed in the International Affairs Building on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan. The building sits on the southeast corner of W. 118th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, and was completed in 1971. It consists of a fifteen-story tower and a large four-story wing built below grade level, so that its roof serves as a plaza. These two sections total well over 400,000 square feet.

[edit] Growth and Tradition

Columbia University's School of International Affairs was founded in 1946, in the aftermath of World War II. Emphasizing practical training, the mission of the School was to foster understanding of regions of vital interest and to prepare diplomats, officials, and other professionals to meet the complexities of the postwar world. It originated in dynamic regional institutes that, with an interdisciplinary vision bold for its day, drew on Columbia's renowned faculties in history, economics, political science, linguistics, and other traditional fields. The School awarded a Master of International Affairs (MIA) degree.

By 1950, three regional institutes were in operation--the Russian Institute (now Harriman Institute), established in 1946 and the first of its kind in the United States; the East Asian Institute, and the European Institute (now the Institute for the Study of Europe) both founded in 1949. During the 1950s and 1960s, the School expanded in scope and depth: SIA, as it was then called, developed a national and international profile as a leading center for educational and research programs in area studies, security, and international relations. By 1967, the School was home to eight regional institutes, covering nearly every part of the globe. Originally housed in a row of brownstones, the School moved into its own 15-story building in 1971.

To meet a growing demand for skilled public service professionals at home as well as abroad, in 1977 the School added a second degree, the Master of Public Administration. In 1981, the program was renamed the Graduate Program in Public Policy and Administration and the School renamed the School of International and Public Affairs. With its principal degree programs firmly established, SIPA added functional concentrations to both the MIA and MPA in response to emerging areas of need and professional opportunity--from international finance to urban policy, from human rights to environmental policy.

In the early 1990s, SIPA began appointing its own faculty, supplementing the distinguished social and natural scientists and humanists with whom SIPA students studied around the University. Within 15 years, SIPA faculty were among the most prominent in their fields, including the one-time director of the U.S. census, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, a judge on the appellate body of the World Trade Organization, economic advisors in both the Bill Clinton and George Bush administrations, a former assistant secretary general of the United Nations, and many distinguished research scholars.

SIPA has continued to evolve, adding programs that mirror a globalized world in which the boundaries between international and public affairs, like the boundaries between states, have grown less distinct. In 1992, with support from the World Bank, The Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM) was established to provide mid-career finance professionals with the skills required for effective design and implementation of economic policy, emphasizing the problems of developing and transition economies. Students who complete PEPM’s requirements are awarded an MPA degree.

One of the School's most notable initiatives over the years has been the International Fellows program which has given the best graduate students in the various schools at Columbia an immersion into international affairs in a one academic year program of seminars and networking events with high level international affairs practitioners. The program has a distinguished list of alumni which include a former Deputy Secretary of State,a Nobel Prize recipient, a Fortune 100 CEO and a prestigious national news magazine editor.

To accommodate the needs of working professionals who could not pursue full-time study, SIPA established the Executive MPA program in 1999 as part of the Picker Center for Executive Education. In 2001 the School introduced an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy (ESP), an intensive one-year program that provides core courses in management and policy analysis and a concentration in environmental science and earth systems. The ESP MPA program is offered in cooperation with The Earth Institute and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. In fall 2004 SIPA inaugurated its first doctoral program, the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Sustainable Development, which combines elements of a traditional graduate education in social science, particularly economics, with a significant training in the natural sciences.

In addition, SIPA has established a Global Public Policy Network with the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and a variety of other collaborations with public policy programs at the Universidad Externado in Bogatá, Renmin University in Beijing and other universities in Europe and Asia. SIPA also offers non-degree training programs in its home city of New York and around the world through the Picker Center for Executive Education. A history of the School written in 1954 boasts that students came from six countries outside the United States and that graduates were working in 17 different countries. The class of 2005 came from over a hundred countries, and the School’s 11,000 alumni are working in 155 countries.

[edit] Publications

Communiqué - Communiqué is a student-written, student-run newspaper of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The editors are solely responsible for its content.

Conflict Resolution Journal - Dedicated to conflict resolution, the Conflict Resolution Journal is a dynamic, evolving Web project founded by students at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

Journal of International Affairs - Established in 1947, the Journal of International Affairs is the second oldest publication in the field of international relations, affiliated with and run by students at the School of International and Public Affairs.

SIPA News - The School of International and Public Affairs’ biannual publication featuring articles by faculty, students and alumni as well as current news about SIPA’s programs, events and alumni.

www.themorningsidepost.com posts information on activities and research at SIPA