Keren Yarhi-Milo Named New Dean Of School Of International And Public Affairs

Upper West Side NY

28 May, 2022

3:45 PM

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By Zachary Schermele, Columbia Daily Spectator • May 27, 2022, 10:38 PM Keren Yarhi-Milo, the Arnold A. Saltzman professor of war and peace studies and the director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, has been announced by University President Lee Bollinger as the next dean of the School of International and Public Affairs. Yarhi-Milo replaces Thomas Christensen, the James T. Shotwell professor of international relations who also served in the U.S. Department of State during the George W. Bush administration. He became interim dean on Jan. 1 following the departure of Merit Janow. Bollinger announced last summer that Janow, a professor of professional practice in international economic law and international affairs, would step down after an eight-year tenure as dean. Under Janow's leadership, SIPA "expanded the School's research faculty, centers, and programs" in a number of core fields, such as sustainable development and human rights, Bollinger wrote in a July news release. Yarhi-Milo, GS '03, has been a faculty member at Columbia since 2019. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and spent a decade as a professor at Princeton University. At Columbia, Yarhi-Milo has worked to help students and scholars displaced by the crisis in Afghanistan, Bollinger wrote. She also spearheaded the creation of the Emerging Voices in National Security and Intelligence program, launched in November 2021, to funnel more women, marginalized and underrepresented groups, and first-generation students into the national security and intelligence fields. "The world of national security should look like America," she told Spectator at the time. "We are working really hard to make sure that it's successful." Yarhi-Milo recently led a subgroup in the undergraduate expansion inquiry that has conducted significant work investigating the state of large majors. She is also a member of the University Senate along with the joint Columbia College-General Studies Committee on Instruction, the existence of which has become a subject of debate in the last year. Previous SIPA leaders have played major roles in setting the school's agenda and charting paths for its future. For example, SIPA was initially part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the perennially cash-strapped budgetary unit that includes Columbia College, the School of General Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of the Arts, and the School of Professional Studies. In 2009, then-dean John Coatsworth worked with then-Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks to effectively pay for SIPA to leave FAS, making SIPA an "autonomous professional school within Arts and Sciences." As Yarhi-Milo takes office, SIPA continues to deal with space constraints. In 2020, the school intended to move to the Manhattanville campus, where the Business School opened its doors to students for the first time last semester, but fundraising challenges may have stalled the move. SIPA is currently still housed in the International Affairs Building, which was described in a project description of the Manhattanville campus to New York City as "obsolete and inefficiently configured." As SIPA has expanded, several of its research groups have been forced to lease off-campus space and some classes have been moved later in the day. The state of the school's move to Manhattanville is unclear. Yarhi-Milo will start as dean on July 1. Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter and like Spectator on Facebook. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.