History

HISTORY of APSIA

1.  The Study of International Affairs
2. The beginning (mid- 1970s – 1987)
3. The Goheen Report (1987)
4. Setting APSIA’s Foundations (1988 – 1990)
5. Early Programs (1991 – 1995)
6. APSIA Growing, Restructuring, and Changing Focus (1995 – 2002)
7. Growth and International Expansion
8. APSIA as a Public Good
9. APSIA Today (2008 – Present)
10. APSIA Presidents and Executive Directors
11. APSIA Membership History

The study of international affairs

International affairs (IA) as a field of study attracts students who are interested in the greater international community around them, as well as those who hear the call to public service. As a multidisciplinary field, IA has followed the development of the traditional social science disciplines through the 20^th century. In the United States, the originally provincial worldview of American society was transformed by two World Wars and increased investment in education by the federal government. The optimism of the 1950s, however, made way for the societal “upheavals of the 1960s, from civil rights to Vietnam,” and the disillusion with government of the “1970s, from Watergate to stagflation.”[1] Private foundations, most of all the Ford Foundation, thus began to “support the establishment of a new generation of professional graduate schools of public policy in the 1970s.”[2] These schools were multidisciplinary, providing students with courses in economics, sociology, as well as political science. Interest in international affairs continued to grow through the 1980s – with increasing demand for a professional education in IA, there existed the potential for IA schools to work together to combine growing interest with a useful network of like-minded institutions.

The beginning (mid- 1970s – 1987)

Before APSIA officially was established in 1989, there was an early network of deans and directors of schools of international relations.  The earliest were five schools of IA that served as the core for what was to become APSIA. These five schools were located at Columbia University, Georgetown University, Tufts University, Johns Hopkins University, and Princeton University. This group of five schools and others who joined the slowly expanding network started to meet in the mid-1970s, with funding from a Ford Foundation grant, to discuss their ideas on international affairs education and how to better prepare their students for professional careers. Soon after, the schools issued a brochure that identified the group with their shared educational mission. The schools’ admissions and career officers also began to work together and accustom themselves to the idea of a collective life.

During this period APSIA also compared the curricula of its member schools via a grant from the Exxon Education Foundation. With a particular focus on the function of history in teaching international affairs, the study found that history served a varied but often peripheral role in APSIA schools. APSIA continued comparing curricula after it became an official organization, as comparative curriculum analysis proved a useful way to identify and evaluate how each member school approached international affairs education.

The eleven schools that comprised the earliest official APSIA grouping were[3]:

• School of International Service (SIS), American University
• Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University (Canada)
• School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University
• Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), University of Denver
• Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS),GeorgetownUniversity
• School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University
• Gaduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh
• Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (WWS), Princeton University
• Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (FSLD), Tufts University
• School of International Relations (SIR), University of Southern California
• Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS), University of Washington

The Goheen Report (1987)

The comparative study titled “Education in U.S. Schools of International Affairs” by Robert F. Goheen, often referred to as the “Goheen Report,” was essential in APSIA’s transformation from a loose association into a more official and structured organization. Goheen, a highly respected former Princeton president as well as ambassador to India, conducted the study in 1987 with the support and funding of the Exxon Education Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. The study’s primary purpose was to facilitate the exchange of “practice, experience, and thought” among the early ASPIA schools and to encourage them to take a closer look at their own practices and philosophies of education.[4]

After researching and comparing each school’s curriculum, mission, time to degree, implementation of foreign language and area studies, and overseas relations, Goheen developed a list of recommendations for the APSIA schools and for APSIA itself as an organization. These recommendations included: incorporating annual exchanges of data concerning student enrollment, faculty size, placement of graduates, etc.; the regular sharing among the deans and directors of “curricular and instructional developments;” cooperative case study work between APSIA schools and foreign experts in international relations; and a program designed to attract more minority students to apply to APSIA schools.[5] His concluding remarks were that APSIA’s network of schools could be more effective in achieving their shared goals if they became a “true organization with a small central staff.”[6]

Three additional schools joined APSIA by the time of the Goheen Report in 1987[7]:

• Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS), University of California, San Diego
• School of International Affairs, George Washington University, (later named the Elliott School of International Affairs)
• Center for International and Area Studies (later named the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies), Yale University

Setting APSIA’s Foundations (1988 – 1990)

The initial members of the APSIA Council were: Louis W. Goodman of American University, Alfred C. Stepan of Columbia University, Maurice A. East of George Washington University, Peter F. Krogh of Georgetown University, George R. Packard of Johns Hopkins University, Donald E. Stokes of Princeton University, Jeswald W. Salacuse of Tufts University, Peter Gourevitch of the University of California at San Diego, E. Thomas Rowe of the University of Denver, Davis B. Bobrow of the University of Pittsburgh, Gerald Bender of the University of Southern California, John Haley of the University of Washington, and William Foltz of Yale University. As the deans and directors of APSIA’s member schools they served as the voting body for the organization’s many decisions going forward.

The APSIA Council agreed with the Goheen Report’s recommendations and in April of 1988 began working towards becoming a more structured and formal organization. By November the group had approved bylaws and thus made clear APSIA’s purpose:

…the improvement of professional education in international affairs and the advancement thereby of international understanding, prosperity, peace, and security, and the engagement in any other lawful act or activity for which not for profit corporations may be organized under the General Corporation Law of Delaware.[8]

They elected APSIA’s first president, Dean Jeswald W. Salacuse of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. With its president elected and bylaws established, on April 13, 1989 APSIA was incorporated in the state ofDelaware. By November of that year APSIA was recognized as a tax-exempt 503 (c)(3) organization by the Internal Revenue Code.

On April 1, 1990, APSIA hired Kay King as the Association’s first Executive Director. King had  previously worked on the staff of US Senator Joe Biden and received the full confidence of the deans and directors for administering APSIA’s newly established executive office. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at 2400 N Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 generously provided APSIA with the office space for King to begin operations. This would serve as the organization’s executive office until 1997, saving APSIA over $60,000 in estimated rental fees over those seven years.

The early APSIA members had several generous donations and grants to pursue the Association’s aims and aspirations. The Pew Charitable Trusts, Exxon Education Foundation, U.S. Institute of Peace, Hewlett Foundation, Rockefeller Family, and the Ford Foundation all contributed to APSIA’s early programmatic needs. With this financial backing and members’ dues APSIA moved forward with its goal to improve and promote international affairs education while also taking advantage of recent events by fostering exchange between the United States and Eastern Europe and the former members of the recently dissolved Soviet Union.

 Early Programs (1991 – 1995)

Russian Foreign Ministry Exchange

In 1991 APSIA began its programmatic work with two major projects in Eastern Europe and Russia. The first was an exchange program with Russia that allowed American and former Soviet diplomats, professors, and students to study, teach, and research at each other’s institutions. Maurice A. East, dean of the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, was in charge of the program.

The exchange agreement had the Ministry of Foreign Affairs admitting Americans to its educational institutions for the very first time. This included both the Diplomatic Academy (DA) and the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO).  This was especially significant, as the DA and MGIMO combined had trained and educated over 85% of all the USSR’s diplomatic and ministry personnel.

Technical Assistance Program

The second major APSIA program involved East Central Europe and improving the region’s institutions of international affairs. From 1991 until 1993 the project provided advice concerning curriculum development, library resources, and personnel assessment to academic organizations in East Central Europe. The participating organizations were in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Dean Davis B. Bobrow of the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs led the program.

U.S. International Affairs Studies Review

Following the success of its endeavors in Russia and East Central Europe, APSIA turned its attentions back to the United States. With funding from the Ford Foundation, in 1993 they began to review and analyze how the now fifteen member schools were modifying their academic programs and curricula to a post-Cold War international community. The hope for such an assessment was that it would be a “descriptive and prescriptive report [that would] help keep programs at APSIA and other international affairs schools relevant and responsive to the changing global challenges and opportunities of the next century.[9]”

Louis Goodman, Kay King, and Stephen Szabo, the authors of the report, determined that several changes were required for the continued success of APSIA schools through the twenty-first century. Some of these recommendations included:

• Developing admissions requirements that ensure that enrolling students are equipped with a strong liberal arts education, a strong foundation in the social sciences, competent in oral and written communication, understanding of a foreign country or region, and solid computer skills.
• Establishing core curricular requirements, including International Relations theory, international economics, and policy analysis.
• Fostering teaching that is both multidisciplinary and policy-grounded.
•  Encouraging interactive teaching methods such as role playing, case studies, simulations, gaming, policy workshops, group learning, and more extensive computer use.
• Featuring experiential education as a central element of the educational program.[10]

 Conflict Resolution Review

By the mid-1990s, both practitioners and students had developed an increasing interest in the study and teaching of conflict resolution. Recognizing this, APSIA in 1994 – with the financial support of the U.S. Institute of Peace – performed a review of conflict resolution programs in its member schools. As noted in the report:

While the APSIA schools have long provided graduate training for international affairs professionals, they are now confronted with the critical task of integrating more deliberately and systematically the study of ICR [International Conflict Resolution] into their programs.[11]

The project aimed to help APSIA schools with their curricula and to advance the field in general with its findings. With that in mind, it discussed various issues and models with the hope that they would be useful for faculty, students, and practitioners alike. [12] The report pursued three primary objectives:

1. To identify intellectual trends in the early 1990s that lentd substance to the emerging field/sub-field of ICR within international relations.
2. To catalog systematically the current state of ICR teaching and curricula.
3. To offer recommendations on the role APSIA schools can play.[13]

 

APSIA Growing, Restructuring, and Changing Focus (1995 – 2002)

Starting around the mid-1990s and continuing through the early years of the new millennium, APSIA underwent a wave of changes in its organizational structure and in the programmatic purpose. Its roster of member and associate member schools grew, in the United States and internationally. Funding levels, however, were declining relative to expenses and required a reconsideration of the Association’s goals and overall mission. APSIA’s executive office underwent several changes, both in staff reduction and in several relocations before ultimately settling at its current University of Maryland College Park location in 2008.

Later Programs

Minority Outreach Programs

The Goheen Report in 1987 recommended that APSIA reach out to students traditionally underrepresented in its member schools and more broadly in international affairs professions. Thus, while improving and expanding the study of international affairs, the Association also worked to promote the participation of traditionally underrepresented members of society. The APSIA Diversity Initiative of 1996 was one such program. Funded by the Ford Foundation, “the purpose of the project [was] to enhance the presence of people of color, not only in APSIA schools, but in the field of international relations at large.[14]”

In addition to the Diversity Initiative, APSIA has been a long-time supporter and one of the institutional sponsors of the Public Policy & International Affairs (PPIA) Fellowship Program. PPIA organizes summer institutes for rising undergraduate seniors to provide them with, among other skills, quantitative skills that will prepare them for being strong applicants to graduate schools of public and international affairs. In its earlier days, the PPIA program provided university juniors and seniors from minority backgrounds with the funding to complete their bachelor’s degrees and pursue graduate studies in public policy or international affairs.[15] As befits a longstanding relationship, deans and directors from APSIA schools have often served on the program’s executive board.

 The APSIA Symposia Series (1995 – 1998)

In 1995 APSIA began a reevaluation of its schools’ curricula with respect to changes arising from a post-Cold War era and how “best to respond and adapt curricular programs to the challenges and opportunities of the 21^st century.”[16]

With funding from the Ford Foundation, the project brought together experts and professionals from the international affairs community to discuss topics through seven symposia. Through this symposia series APSIA hoped to provide “broadly instructive” ideas for improving specific areas of international affairs curricula.[17] In addition, the symposia would expand and diversify the network of those involved in international affairs education.

The seven symposia were:

1.  “Globalization: Theory, Practice and Education at the Turn of the Millennium” at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, October 1996
2. “APEC in the International Affairs Curriculum” at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego, February 1997
3. “The Challenges to Market Reform in the Developing Areas” at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, March 1997
4. “Migrants, Refugees and International Relations” at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, May 1997
5. “Toward a New Curricular Architecture: IPE, Telecommunications, and International Affairs Programs in a Networked Era” held in Atlanta, Georgia by the American University School of International Service, September 1997
6. “Making Area Expertise Accessible: Area Studies as a Gateway for Students, Faculty and Professional” at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University, November 1997
7. “The Public and Foreign Policy: Educating International Affairs Professionals for a New Era” in Washington, D.C. June 1998

Growth and International Expansion

By the mid-1990s international affairs had seen a notable increase in interest from students looking to apply their education to an impactful global career. APSIA schools met this need by using both practitioners and scholars as IA professors and providing a useful mix of practical and theoretical experiences. The growth of IA schools in terms of numbers and prestige showed that the study of international affairs itself was being seen more as a distinct and meaningful course of study. The IA field was not remaining static, however, as most APSIA schools slowly converted from teaching regional or area specializations to more general internationalized programs.  Many incoming students desired to make a positive impact on the world around them, thus the field of international development at APSIA schools saw a notable increase through the mid-1990s. International affairs research on conflict resolution also saw growth in APSIA during this period.

As APSIA grew and developed in the United States the question remained regarding whether the organization would internationalize by expanding overseas. While Canada’s Carleton University Norman Paterson School of International Service had been a member since APSIA’s inception, APSIA had been focused on US institutions. In 1998, APSIA decided to allow non-US schools to join as associate members. Japan’s Ritsumeikan University Graduate School of International Relations (GSIR) was the first non-North American school to apply for membership. With the addition of Ritsumeikan to the Association, APSIA began the process of becoming a truly global institution of international affairs education. This trend continued from 2000-2002 with the entrance of seven European schools following the efforts of Francis Verillaud, Vice President for International Affairs at Sciences Po, to encourage the growth of non-U.S. member schools. Today, APSIA membership is almost 40% non-US.

APSIA as a Public Good

The service APSIA provides is both direct to the individual member schools and to the larger society. The Association functions as a public good, providing useful information, expertise, and experience to everyone in the International Affairs community. Schools joining APSIA contribute to this public good, benefiting those generally involved in IA as well as themselves. At the same time APSIA is a resource benefiting the individual schools themselves and institutions dobecame member schools for advantages exclusive to the Association.

Since its establishment, APSIA has provided resources directly to its members, most notably admissions and career services resources and also critical information about international affairs education. At times, the association intentionally has sought to generate public goods such that non-member schools in the United States and world-wide could strengthen or initiate professional international affairs programs. This has been reflected in the creation of the category of “Affiliate Members” to encourage non-members to create the strongest possible international affairs programs and publicizing the benefits of multi-disciplinary, policy-related graduate training for improved public policy and for individual professional development

 APSIA Today (2008 – Present)

In 2008, the deans and directors of APSIA decided to re-establish the Executive Office in Washington, DC after eight years of moving the office to a different member school every two years.  The APSIA leadership chose the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland as a semi-permanent home for the Executive Office. In May 2008, Leigh Morris Sloane joined APSIA as the first full-time Executive Director since 1999.  In September 2011, APSIA hired a full-time program assistant to help the Executive Director manage the growing membership and programs.

The late 2000s also saw APSIA join the social networking community. Current and prospective students of IA schools can now connect to APSIA via Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These provide students with yet another means of connecting with APSIA, in addition to the regularly updated website and various graduate fairs held worldwide.  APSIA continues to search for effective avenues for promoting a professional education in international affairs including working with Foreign Affairs to launch an annual Graduate School Forum special section in the journal.

As APSIA looks forward, there is an emphasis on both maintaining its successful programs and continuing to develop the Association as a fully international organization. Programs added since 2008 include the Rosenthal Fellowship in International Relations and the Japan Travel Program for U.S. Future Leaders. These programs grant students from APSIA schools the chance to pursue their international affairs interests in the public and private sectors. Beyond the continued sponsorship of these programs, APSIA is also looking to increase its global reach. The Association provides graduate school fairs throughout the world. APSIA now holds its annual deans’ meeting outside the U.S. every third year. The organization’s future growth and development will lie in successfully expanding overseas and integrating its member and affiliate schools. The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs now includes 35 member schools and 35 affiliate schools – APSIA has a wealth of resources and worldwide reach to effect positive change in IA education in the years ahead.

 

 APSIA Presidents and Executive Directors

Executive Directors

1990-1999	Kay King
1999	Michelle Titi (acting director)
2000-2001	Marcus Grundahl
2002	Peter Balint
2002-2004	Jeffrey G. Lewis
2004-2006	Daniel J. Whelan
2006-2008	Braden E. Smith
2008-present	Leigh Morris Sloane

Related Pages

• About APSIA
• Executive Office
• History
• Publications