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Dean John H. Coatsworth's Statement
April 29, 2008
I am honored, and a bit awestruck, at the prospect of serving as SIPA’s dean during what promises to be a transformative era in the School’s history.
SIPA is Columbia’s global public policy school. Its mission is to create knowledge and train students for a rapidly changing world. SIPA’s 240 faculty, 1200 students, and 14,000 alumni are working throughout the world to raise productivity, overcome the effects of climate change, develop new sources of energy, protect the environment, mitigate persistent inequalities, prevent the spread of disease, build institutions, manage urbanization, end human rights abuses, and prevent or end violent conflict. They are serving the public good in governments and international organizations, as well as the private, non-profit, and NGO sectors in over 150 countries.
In the next few years, SIPA will acquire greater financial and academic autonomy, plan its move to a new building in Manhattanville, implement a comprehensive curriculum reform, develop new partnerships with the Earth Institute and Columbia’s other professional schools, and become a key player in Columbia’s globalization efforts.
SIPA will also deepen its partnerships with institutions around the globe, raise its international research profile, incorporate science into its curriculum, create interactive classrooms with courses taught simultaneously at locations abroad, significantly enhance its commitment to policy research, teaching and service in New York City, and offer leading scholars, policymakers and practitioners new opportunities to collaborate with Columbia faculty and students.
Marshalling the human and material resources to turn these goals into realities is an immense challenge. Success will make SIPA the top public policy school on the planet and an essential hub of interdisciplinary thought and action at Columbia. Fortunately, SIPA has incomparable advantages in working toward this goal: its outstanding faculty and superb staff, its enthusiastic and loyal alumni, its growing reputation for excellence, its place at the center of one of the world’s greatest research universities, and its location in the most global of US cities.
I am honored and delighted to have the opportunity to work together with the entire SIPA community and colleagues throughout Columbia to build an exciting future for this great School.