Coatsworth Appointment Comes After Controversial Year

When John Coatsworth invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia last October, he knew there would be some fallout, but he could have been excused for not anticipating its extent. Coatsworth, then the newly-minted acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, was assailed by pundits from the left and the right. Adding insult to injury, Ahmadinejad’s appearance landed Columbia at the top of Time Magazine’s annual “awkward” rankings for 2007. For Coatsworth, it was a dramatic introduction to his new job.

“It was a baptism of fire,” Coatsworth said. “It made being the acting dean of SIPA much more interesting than I anticipated.”

As Coatsworth takes over SIPA for the long haul, he will pick up where he left off in reforming the school’s academic framework, while simultaneously riding out the legacy of Ahmadinejad’s visit.

By the time the arrangement to host Ahmadinejad at the World Leaders Forum was set, Coatsworth—who came to Columbia as a visiting professor from Harvard University in 2006 and agreed the following year to stay and direct the Institute of Latin American Studies—was already acclimating to his role as acting dean of SIPA.

From the Ahmadinejad saga, Coatsworth quickly learned the perils of his new title. As the event approached, he became embroiled in controversy after Fox News broadcast him saying that he would have been willing to host Adolph Hitler—a controversial comment for a previous president of the American Historical Association to make.

Coatsworth, who moderated the question-and-answer session with Ahmadinejad, said Fox took his statement about Hitler out of context. “I answered the question as an historian rather than a dean. This was probably a mistake.”

“I think what I should have done was to throw the question back onto Fox News and ask them if they would have sought an exclusive interview. No doubt given the sentiments of many in the isolationist wing of the Republican Party at that time, they would have done it with great enthusiasm,” Coatsworth said.

Controversy is nothing new to SIPA deans. Lisa Anderson, then-dean of SIPA, invited Ahmadinejad to speak at the 2006 World Leaders Forum, but rescinded the invitation, citing security and freedom-of-speech concerns, after University President Lee Bollinger chose not to lend it full University sponsorship.

This time, Coatsworth said, the event proceeded and proved constructive because it was executed with dignity and proper security measures. “It demonstrated that the school could do something enormously controversial and difficult, with a great deal of logistical skill ... We received this controversial visitor without the slightest disruption or difficulty, and he was able to say what he came to say. And we were able to question him. It demonstrated that Columbia as an institution is capable of doing even the most difficult things.”

Coatsworth deemed the event a success because it also fostered discussion about “what free speech really means when it gets tough, what Iran-U.S. relations ought to look like, what the Iranian leadership is and how it’s structured, and what Ahmadinejad’s role in it would be.” The question-and-answer session ensured that “there’s a dialogue and not just a platform.”

While some students deplored the invitation initially, Coatsworth said they ended up appreciating the event, showing that they “don’t need to be protected from strange ideas and even controversial, obnoxious ones.”

Since then, Coatsworth has developed a strong rapport with his faculty and the central administration. “John Coatsworth has been brilliant in his time as acting Dean of SIPA, carrying on and furthering the aspirations of the school, managing the transition in leadership, overseeing a comprehensive overhaul of the curriculum, and beginning the planning process for the move to Manhattanville,” said Vice President for the Arts and Sciences Nick Dirks. “He has impressed students, faculty, and staff, as well as the entire search committee.”

As SIPA senior lecturer Helios Herrera said, “Everybody likes John.”

Coatsworth’s initiative to lead SIPA to independence from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has won him more favor with faculty. Independence would allow SIPA to manage its own budget and determine the terms for recruiting its own professors, perhaps allowing the school to avoid the rigorous, long, and research-heavy tenure process of Arts and Sciences. SIPA’s independence would also eliminate the red tape currently surrounding some mundane activities, such as copying keys.

Currently, SIPA’s affiliation within Arts and Sciences means it is served by faculty hired by Arts and Sciences, and is separated from Low Library by an extra layer of administration. Though SIPA was born out of Arts and Sciences as a graduate program, it has since built itself into a large professional school.

“Everyone agrees that the relationship between SIPA and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences can be reconsidered,” University Provost Alan Brinkley said in March. When SIPA chooses a permanent dean, he said, “that will be a point at which the dean of SIPA and the Vice President for Arts and Sciences will talk about what kind of relationship makes most sense for a school that we hope will be growing and prospering.”

As the new permanent dean, Coatsworth will be able to see his ideas through, as well as coordinate SIPA’s move to Manhattanville. Along with questions of space allocation on the new campus in a decade, decisions must be made as to whether academic disciplines that have offices in the International Affairs Building will leave the Morningside campus with SIPA.

Coatsworth said his first tangible change will be to reform SIPA’s curriculum, reducing the number of concentrations to seven, while allowing additional specializations within them. A review committee agreed to the change, which will affect the incoming first-year students.

“My biggest challenge will be to preserve the consensus of the entire community during the period of rapid change and to find the material resources to make these changes possible,” Coatsworth said.

joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com