Annual Report 2010 | 2011 - Columbia Global Centers

The Centers are nimble hubs that provide a foundation for students, faculty, affiliates, and alumni to explore
academic opportunities. Because the Centers do not have the structural rigidity of the branch campus, they allow
the University to increase its global scope and enrich diversity of academic experience, while maintaining strong
connections with the home campus. Perhaps more importantly, the Centers also represent multi-directional learning:
Columbia is not thrusting education onto a new environment; instead, through the Global Centers, it becomes a
partner in its international contexts. The experience of opening and operating the Centers allows members of the
Columbia community the opportunity not only to impart knowledge and expertise, but to learn.
President Bollinger, in particular, had the vision and remarkable foresight to realize a new model of global education
was needed, leading him to spearhead this innovative model that no university has tried before. He entrusted Professor
Kenneth Prewitt with the leadership of this initiative as Vice President of Columbia’s Global Centers, and drew on
the experience and expertise of Professor Safwan Masri to help realize this vision.
When Lee C. Bollinger became the nineteenth President of Columbia University in 2002, he immediately began
instituting programs, drawing up plans and hiring faculty and deans that are making the University thrive. Under
President Bollinger’s leadership, Columbia launched the largest capital campaign in its history, proposed its most
ambitious campus expansion in more than a century and received a record number of applications for its incoming
undergraduate class. Committed to ensuring that, from its location in the United States’ most global city, Columbia
excels as a truly global university, he launched a number of new initiatives such as the World Leaders Forum, which
invites prominent international figures to the campus to engage in the major issues of our time; the Faculty Committee
on Global Thought, to pursue scholarship and generate new curriculum models that help students become better
citizens of the world; as well as new academic partnerships with institutions around the globe.
In proposing that the University invest in long-term growth in upper Manhattan, he has committed to expanding
Columbia’s already extensive civic partnerships that work to improve education, healthcare and economic opportunity
in West Harlem, Washington Heights and other local New York neighborhoods. But expansion in New York City
was not enough: President Bollinger advocated for a larger institutional commitment to broadening the University’s
global perspective, and was determined to find a way to give students and faculty a way not just to learn, but to get
out in the world, and engage.
The inauguration of the Global Centers, combined with a wide range of initiatives from a broad array of Columbia
schools and programs, represents the next stage in Columbia’s evolution. By moving beyond the current concepts
of branch campuses or locally focused international outposts to a networked structure that allows faculty and
students to leverage research disciplines across the world and across the academic spectrum, Columbia is on its way
to becoming the world’s first global university.
Columbia Global Centers Network
There are currently four Columbia Global Centers operating in Amman, Beijing, Mumbai, and Paris, which cover
the regions of the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, and Europe respectively. Over the next few months, additional
Centers will be inaugurated in Istanbul, Nairobi and Santiago, with plans to also establish a Global Center in Rio de
Janeiro within the coming year. Each Center is directed by resident academic leaders, and is governed by a board of
directors of Columbia University senior administrators. The Centers are also guided by advisory boards composed of
prominent academics, public figures, and business leaders, as well as university-wide faculty steering committees.