Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

Three cheers for your recent excellent feature on Columbia’s role as an American institution (The Canon, Jan. 25). I do not believe that Columbia has to decide between being an “American university” versus an “international university.” Joseph Nye, the former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, recently quoted former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew as saying “China can draw on a talent pool of 1.3 billion people, but the United States … draws on a talent pool of 7 billion.” An international university is not some ill-defined bastion of “globalization,” but rather one whose fundamental values—fundamental American values—of freedom and opportunity regardless of birth, circumstance, religion, or creed—draw and continue to attract the world’s talents. These American values have, not coincidentally, made American universities, in general, and Columbia University in particular, international leaders among the world’s universities.

Tao Tan
Columbia College ’07
Columbia Business School ’11