The noted foreign-policy scholar and writer David J. Rothkopf will join SIPA’s faculty as a visiting professor of international and public affairs for the 2016-17 academic year, the School announced today. Rothkopf will teach courses on the United States’ role in world affairs in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 and serve as visiting director of the International Fellows program over the same period, while program director Stephen Sestanovich is on leave.
Rothkopf is the CEO and editor of the FP Group, which publishes Foreign Policy magazine and its websites, and the president and CEO of Garten Rothkopf, a Washington-based international consulting firm that specializes in areas including energy and trade.
“SIPA will be fortunate to once again welcome David Rothkopf to our faculty in the coming academic year,” said Dean Merit E. Janow. “He will bring to our students and our community a distinct perspective forged by his engagement in a cross-section of contemporary foreign-policy debates, both as a government official and through his work in the private sector, and I know our International Fellows will benefit greatly from his deep experience and connections in Washington and abroad.”
“I look forward to again teaching at SIPA,” said Rothkopf. “It will be a special privilege to work with the 2017 class of international fellows, and to welcome all students who wish to consider how United States conducts foreign policy in today’s complex world.”
He is the author of numerous books including, most recently, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear (PublicAffairs, 2014). Rothkopf writes a weekly column for foreignpolicy.com and contributes frequently to publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, CNN,Newsweek, and Time. Rothkopf is also the host of “The Editor’s Roundtable,” a weekly audio program and podcast on current events, and has appeared as a TED Talk speaker.
Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a current or former member of advisory boards of the Center for Global Development, the Center for the Study of the Presidency, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
He previously worked as CEO of Intellibridge Corporation and as managing director of Kissinger Associates, and served in the Clinton presidential administration as deputy under secretary of commerce for international trade and acting under secretary. During his tenure in the Department of Commerce, Rothkopf directed the activities of the International Trade Administration and helped create the Big Emerging Markets Initiative, the U.S. government’s first inter-agency program devoted to emerging markets.
The appointment marks a return to SIPA and Columbia for Rothkopf, who between Fall 1996 and Spring 2003 regularly taught SIPA courses on emerging markets, and returned for a semester in 2006 to lead a course on U.S. national security. He has also been a faculty member at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and lectured at many elite universities in the United States and abroad.
Rothkopf earned a BA from Columbia in 1977 and also studied at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.
This time of year we receive several requests from incoming students asking for an idea of what their education will look like starting in September. As the image above previews (drag the arrows), your course load will be packed in classes in quantitative preparation, policy development, and international topics of interest. Then as things progress, your schedule will focus more on courses in your concentration and specialization. The good news is the course offerings vary and rotate per semester so there’s always something interesting to discover—SIPA’s even added some new courses this year!
Browse the Curriculum pages to delve deeper into the current lineup and the sample pictured above. But don’t let the more than 300 course listings stress you out. You’ll have plenty of time to plan and register for classes during orientation week. We just wanted to give you a sneak peek of what’s to come. (Keep in mind course requirements will vary if you pursue a dual-degree program, so contact the Office of Student Affairs with specific questions.) Later this summer you’ll be assigned an advisor and s/he will fill you in on all of the details in August. Until then, enjoy your break.
To support innovative analysis of ICT for development, students conduct 10 days of fieldwork in and around Havana
This spring a team of students from the MPA-DP (MDP) program took part in an innovative, collaborative research project to survey the use of digital media in Cuba. Now they have posted their extensive findings on the Internet, drawing widespread interest.
The study, known informally as ICT4Cuba, sought to provide an overview of the use of information and communication technologies in contemporary Cuba. It examines issues of connectivity, mobile telephone penetration, and digital platforms and explored the implications of digital technology in three areas of Cuban society: arts and culture, public health, and sustainable agriculture.
Beginning in January 2016, participating students conducted two months of research and interviews in preparation for a March trip to Havana, where they carried out 10 days of field research in the Cuban capital and surrounding region. There the students surveyed more than 200 Cubans on their use of the Internet and mobile phones, and gathered new information on the state of media infrastructure and connectivity.
The project was conducted under the auspices of a research seminar on digital media infrastructure in Cuba designed and led by Anne Nelson and Debi Spindelman MPA-DP ’13. Nelson, an adjunct associate professor, is a specialist in media development and has published widely on Caribbean issues, while Spindelman is a capacity development specialist who is also the MDP program’s practice manager.
“The MDP program was the perfect home for this research, given its emphasis on practical projects that address under-served populations,” Nelson said.
The idea for the project originated following an initial research trip Nelson took to Cuba in 2013. She and Spindelman advanced the project in consultation with Mariela Machado Fantacchiotti MPA-DP ’16. Machado, a Venezuela native and telecommunications engineer, had begun to research Cuban telecommunications in the summer of 2015 after an injury thwarted her plans to conduct fieldwork in East Timor.
“We were delighted to work with someone with Mariela’s knowledge and background,” Nelson said.
Six additional MDP students were selected to join the project based on their field experience and own expertise. Four of them (Machado, Ana Carolina Diaz, Laura Lehman, and Emily Sylvia) graduated with the Class of 2016 last month, while three students (Chiara Bercu, Tricia Johnson, and Gary Verburg) will return to school this fall for their second year of study.
The student researchers spoke with more than 200 Cubans, from government officials to ordinary citizens, asking about their mobile-telephone ownership, the expense of subscriptions plans, how they access data, and more.
“We were able to offer a unique update to the official story of Cuba’s digital media, and report what is actually happening on the ground,” Nelson said.
The team members began by surveying various aspects of Cuba’s telecommunications infrastructure. They then explored the access to ICTs and the potential of digital media in the three designated areas (arts and culture, public health, and agriculture). Drawing on past work by previous students in other countries, they conducted interviews with leading figures in each field, and prepared recommendations for innovations in ICT for Development, or ICT4D, that could support each sector.
For Nelson, the findings underscored that “we need to understand the baseline of telecommunications infrastructure and behaviors before we can discuss future approaches.”
The project builds on SIPA’s growing contributions to the field of ICT4D (Information and Communications Technologies for Development). The Cuba research reinforces previous findings that, while advanced apps and Internet solutions serve areas where modern ICT infrastructure is in place, regions that lack such infrastructure can benefit from basic SMS services to deliver critical information on topics such as public health issues, weather conditions and transport.
The project also benefited, Nelson said, from a partnership with Omar Z. Robles, a prominent dance photographer who accompanied the team to explore how Instagram could broaden global awareness of Cuba’s vibrant dance culture. Robles’s project photos have gone viral, appearing on Mashable, the Huffington Post, Univision, and other websites around the world. (One particular photo featured on Instagram received 114,000 likes less than 24 hours after it was first posted.) (Follow SIPA on Instagram!)
Harold Cárdenas Lema, who is considered one of the leading independent bloggers in Cuba, was enthusiastic about the results of the research.
“Many of my friends shared the articles published by the SIPA team, and the pictures of Omar Robles were seen by many people in the island,” he said. “I was really proud that I could give them some tips, because they were really professional and achieved a lot. Is not easy to catch the pulse of an island in few days, but these Columbia students did it!”
Nelson says there are many opportunities for ICT to benefit development, and observed that the communications needs of the world’s bottom billion should not be neglected in favor of first-world issues that are more visible to researchers.
For Machado, who is now working on technology for development at the New York-based NGO Engineering for Change, the project was a special one because of her passion for and expertise in ICT4D—and her involvement early on.
“This project gave us the freedom to explore and find out what is really happening in terms of ICTs in Cuba,” she said. “To be published in Foreign Affairs before even graduating, and have the opportunity to add to the conversation about such a hot topic as Cuba, has opened so many doors for me.
“The MPA-DP Program and Anne Nelson gave me the opportunity to contribute to this project from the start,” Machado added. “Students should remember they have all the doors open. With the right resources and support, they can also be a part of new initiatives and projects.”
MPA-DP Program Director Glenn Denning said that the Cuba project’s practical outputs and widespread recognition are further validation of his program’s unique approach to problem solving. MDPs, Denning argues, are uniquely qualified to undertake applied research and analyses that will enhance the impact of the digital revolution across multiple sectors.
“This is precisely what we prepare MDPs to understand and apply through their coursework and field practice,” Denning said. “We stress the importance of context, relevance, and impact of new technologies. We stress issues of scale—global, national and local. And we increasingly emphasize the need for partnerships within and across the public and private sectors, and with communities.”
Denning also said the Cuba ICT4D project is just the beginning of a deeper engagement of SIPA students and faculty with Cuba as the country opens to greater cooperation and partnership.
Students work with Professor Yasmine Ergas and counterparts in Milan to consider how migration law affects polygamous families
Nearly a dozen SIPA students have been working this semester with Professor Yasmine Ergas, director of the specialization on Gender and Public Policy, to look into the gendered nature of migration experience and migration law. The students have been analyzing legal cases to understand what happens when polygamous families attempt to seek asylum in the United States or United Kingdom.
Cases in which polygamous families attempt to resettle in the European Union or United States are relatively rare today, but—in light of the massive shift in migration movements due to current conflict in the Middle East—Ergas sees this issue coming to the forefront in the near future.
Ergas is quick to point out that polygamous marriages are not a new concern in the United States, noting the significant case law around this issue.
Says Nilay Tuncok MIA ’17, a student participating in the project, “Polygamy has been part of the U.S. legal system for centuries, through multiple Supreme Court decisions and exclusionary immigration laws of the 19th century.”
Tuncok and other SIPA and Columbia students participating in the project are also collaborating with a cohort of students at the University of Milan who are conducting research in tandem. The collaboration allows students to share their research and understand the similarities of and differences between the United States and EU and to recognize the different frameworks and contexts that the different cohorts of students are coming from.
Rose Elizabeth Cutts, a student in Columbia’s M.A. program in Human Rights student who is also participating in the project, said “The Milan group has been really interesting to talk with partly due to the differing experiences of polygamy in the U.S. and Italy.”
The research is also appropriate because of the recent shift in cultural understandings of what makes a family unit.
“This is a time where we are rethinking what we mean by family and marriage,” Ergas said.
Tuncok said the project has helped her to understand how this changing understanding of family is reflected in the law: “I’ve learned to better analyze legal documents, such as looking at how the change in definition of ‘family’ in both U.S. and international law has affected the immigration status of women in polygamous marriages over the years.”
The issue furthermore calls into question concerns about the disproportionate impact these immigration policies have on women. As Ergas pointed out, “Women are the ones that will experience the exclusion.”
For example, if spouses are forced to choose one partner to be their legal wife in a new country that does not recognize polygamy, what happens to the other wives and their children? What happens to their rights to inheritance, social security, health care, child protection, and other resources? While the premise of family reunification for asylum seeker and refugees is often to prioritize keeping families together, how does that priority shift when it comes to polygamous relations?
“Laws have a gendered impact on women in polygamous marriages,” said Tuncok. “For instance, the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 in the U.S. required a person to have good moral character to self-petition for permanent resident status, but the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 considered those practicing polygamy as persons of immoral character, leaving these women at a disadvantage and unable to claim rights.”
Tiff van Huysen, a participating student from Columbia’s M.A. program in Climate and Society, said “The migration process is much more complex than I imagined and that case law and statutory laws do not necessarily provide a clear means by which to reduce that complexity. For example, in the United States, our laws and court systems are really not designed to address issues that may arise in polygamous marriages and that legalizing polygamy would present significant challenges to our current legal system.”
Ergas also noted that the abolition of the practice of polygamy itself is an important cornerstone in gender equality in the West; to simply legalize polygamy would not appear to be in line with Western normative standards around gender equality. She stressed that this issue has to be considered in the context of changing norms regarding family and private life more generally.
“How do we address this in a way that is fair?,” she asked. “We have to understand the problem, understand how countries are trying to cope, and what is happening to the people involved.”
— Kristen Grennan MPA ’16
[Pictured: Yasmine Ergas (standing) and students teleconference with collaborators in Milan.]
The Columbia Global Centers network creates opportunities in research, scholarship, teaching, and service; engages across borders and across disciplines; and expands Columbia’s mission as a global University. Here’s a snapshot at our nine global centers.
Curious about their projects? Just click on their respective links!
Africa strives to enable the highest levels of knowledge and learning in and for Africa, and to create a hub from its location in Nairobi, Kenya for global curriculum and scholarly outreach in the region.
East Asia assists Columbia with its various research and teaching programs in East Asia and serves as a regional base in Beijing, China for interacting locally with students, faculty, and alumni.
Europe creates new programs that explore the consequences of globalization and establishes partnerships with French and European scholars and educational and cultural institutions from its central location in Paris.
Latin America (Santiago) assists Columbia in the development and execution of its research and teaching programs in Chile and the Latin American region.
Middle East serves as a hub for programs and educational initiatives throughout the Middle East from Amman, Jordan.
North America | Columbia Global Centers promote and facilitate the collaborative and impactful engagement of the University’s faculty, students, and alumni with the world to enhance understanding, address global challenges, and advance knowledge and its exchange.
South Asia develops programs and activities involving both students and faculty focusing on issues relating to Mumbai, the State of Maharashtra, India, and the South Asian region.
Turkey serves as a hub for Columbia programs and initiatives relevant to Turkey and the region from Istanbul.
"The most global public policy school, where an international community of students and faculty address world challenges."
—Merit E. Janow, Dean, SIPA, Professor of Practice, International and Economic Law and International Affairs
