After a year as acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, John Coatsworth has been named to the position permanently, University President Lee Bollinger announced in an email Tuesday afternoon.
Coatsworth, a renowned scholar of the economic history of Latin America, took over as acting dean in the summer of 2007 while a committee searched for a permanent replacement for former dean Lisa Anderson.
He became well-known outside of academic circles early in his tenure when he brought Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to campus last October for a controversial speaking appearance. Coatsworth was assailed by many political pundits for hosting such a politically controversial figure, but he was also praised by many at Columbia for his calm handling of the event.
“It’s been a very steep learning curve,” Coatsworth said during a December interview, reflecting on his first semester as acting dean.
“Whoever is the permanent dean will have a school with a bright future to lead it,” he added.
As permanent dean, Coatsworth will oversee the school’s move from the International Affairs Building to new quarters in Manhattanville. He will also spearhead the University’s initiatives in China.
“This will be a critical period in the history of SIPA, especially as the School prepares to move into its own building in Manhattanville,” Bollinger wrote in the e-mail. “In the short period of time in which John has been leading the School, he has been able to galvanize the SIPA community to begin preparing for its future.”
Coatsworth will be charged with polishing the transition framework he laid out for SIPA, and potentially with overseeing the the school's move toward independence from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Greater autonomy would allow SIPA to have its own budget, and operate on a business model closer to that of the School of Law. A more independent budget would allow SIPA to shake off what Coatsworth called Arts and Sciences' “awkward requirements” for tenure proceedings and recruiting. “A future dean of SIPA could have the terrifying responsibility of balancing his or her own budget, but could have greater flexibility in recruiting faculty,” he said previously.
Also during Coatsworth's year as acting dean, SIPA initiated a faculty review committee that is considering reducing the number of concentrations from 19 to six or seven. The concentrations would be in policy areas, and the cut concentrations would turn into specializations within a discipline or region.
While Coatsworth has previously expressed doubts that he would be chosen to permanently lead SIPA, saying that he wasn’t “a household name,” Bollinger said he deemed him worthy because of his “outstanding job as acting Dean of SIPA this past year.”
SIPA colleagues also praised his leadership upon Tuesday's announcement. Lecturer Helios Herrera specifically commended Coatsworth on his personality."He's very easy to talk to, he’s just a charming leader that’s going to push the school forward," Herrera said. "I’m very happy with this news because he instinctively is a great guy. If you ever meet him you say the same thing. Everybody this year, most people I know, we really like him ... His trial year was great because people really liked him. I think it was a big thing that above all the other qualities he may have as a leader."
Coatsworth, who came into the position as a visiting professor at Columbia, was formerly director of Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. He has also served as chair of the history department at the University of Chicago and as a professor of history at Harvard. Coatsworth chaired the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies, and has served as a visiting professor at El Colegio de México, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Buenos Aires, the Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, and the Instituto Ortega y Gassett in Madrid.
Columbia administrators invited Coatsworth to be a SIPA professor while he was on sabbatical from Harvard two years ago. By spring, he was already planning to stay at Columbia as director of the Institute of Latin American Studies when the dean position abruptly opened up with Anderson's stepping down.