The open secret to the institutes' greatness is their ability to draw distinguished faculty from across the University. Columbia is proud to possess the Southern Asian Institute, the Institute of African Studies, the Middle East Institute, and the Institute on Western Europe. When I became president of Columbia six years ago, a major priority I set was the enhancement of multidisciplinary programs so that complementary strengths in different schools and departments could be drawn upon to improve learning and research. The PEPM is a successful collaborative effort, with scholarship help from the government of Japan and the World Bank, bringing together the resources of SIPA, the Graduate School of Business, and the department of economics. As SIPA connects with other schools and institutions, it enriches its curriculum for the future.
Collaborative programs reach out to Prague, Budapest, and Bogota.
Credit toward the M.I.A. may be earned at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. On campus, SIPA is strengthening its ties to the professional schools and the language and culture departments. Meanwhile, the new Center for Comparative Literature and Society is establishing new relationships with the regional institutes. The center, established last year, is an important effort to make available to the institutes a literature-focused study of language. At the same time, knowledge produced by area studies will benefit comparative literature.