The Wilson School is known globally as an institution that attracts the most prominent minds in international affairs. The teaching faculty of the Wilson School includes influential theorists like Robert Keohane, as well as experienced practitioners of diplomacy such as Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel. It attracts well-known speakers, even if they are sometimes substantially overrated like Hans Blix, who will give a talk on disarmament later today in Robertson Hall.
While this robustness in terms of international affairs should be commended, the Wilson School could bolster its attention to regional and local issues. The first step to improving its focus on local matters must be to strengthen the Policy Research Institute for the Region. The Institute has been floundering since January because its former director left the University. While some effort is being made to find a new director, more is needed.
Finding a new director for the Institute will not, however, be enough in and of itself. The Institute needs to take a more proactive role in campus life, bringing speakers, holding panels and encouraging discussion in order to make regional issues as important and accessible to students as international issues. The University should be commended for establishing a certificate Program in Urban Studies under the aegis of the Institute. The Program will be judged a step in the right direction if the requirements of the course of study are tightened so that students are compelled to spend as much time thinking about Camden and Trenton as they might London and Rome.
Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, was not only a great foreign policy theorist, but also a great state politician who dealt with local and regional issues every day. The institution that bears his name must remember this and be wary of getting caught up in the easy glamour of international affairs.
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