Maxwell School of Syracuse University: Maxwell Perspective

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By Renée Gearhart Levy

hen, in 1998, faculty member Mitchell Orenstein surveyed opportunities for academic employment, he was not optimistic. Although he was highly credentialed—he’d earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1996, won a national dissertation award, served as a consultant to the World Bank, and completed a prestigious post-doc fellowship at Brown—his field, comparative politics, was not in vogue.

The Soviet Union had fallen. Frances Fukuyama’s The End of History? proclaimed liberal democracy the “endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution.” There was no real perceived outside threat to the United States’ political supremacy.

“The field of political science favored people with expertise in theories rather than countries,” says Orenstein, who studies central and eastern Europe. “Not too many people were hiring comparative specialists.”

Then he found the Maxwell School. “There was obviously a serious push towards internationalism,” says Orenstein, citing the recently revised professional master’s program in international relations and the Global Affairs Institute. “I thought there would be a lot of opportunity for building programs.”

Indeed, there was. Orenstein spent the fall 2001 semester at Moscow State University, as part of Maxwell’s U.S. State Department-funded project to help establish a public administration program to educate Russia’s next generation of leaders working within a democratic, market-based economy. His current research focuses on pension reforms in Europe, and will include a case study on Russia. In 2001, he published Out of the Red: Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe.

Orenstein also has assisted with the development of the European Union Center at Maxwell and spearheaded a proposal to create a national resource center for European studies (in partnership with Cornell University) that would provide an even stronger identity for European studies in Central New York. All in less than four years.

“Three other faculty members with international interests came on board at roughly the same time I did,” says Orenstein. “If Maxwell’s international initiative hadn’t been serious, we wouldn’t all still be here. Not only are we here, we’re thriving.”

In the last decade or so, the Maxwell School has gone global, widening its worldview to provide an educational experience its administrators and faculty say is more relevant for today’s increasingly interconnected world.

In 1989, the same year Fukuyama extolled democracy as the “final form of human government,” newly installed Dean John L. Palmer challenged the Maxwell faculty to expand the international dimensions of the School.

“It has become commonplace to observe that the world is rapidly becoming economically, politically, and culturally interdependent in a manner unprecedented in human history,” he said. “. . . . This blurring of national and international, economic, political, and social realms poses a serious challenge to the continuing national insularity and increasing specialization of American higher education.”

The school Palmer joined had been founded amid progressive fervor, with a mission steeped in American citizenship. However, since World War II Maxwell had developed several distinctive international programs, including the first master’s degree in Russian studies in the United States, a leading center for East African studies, and a federally funded South Asia Center. By the time of Palmer’s arrival, roughly 50 faculty members were engaged in one international project or another.

“But the School didn’t have nearly the strength on the international side as it had on the domestic side,” Palmer says today. “I wanted us to build co-equal strengths, and recognize that the boundaries between them are more diffuse. It’s hard to talk about domestic and international anymore. So many things interact.”

What Palmer envisioned was an integrative, cohesive program. The challenge was not to increase the number and size of international programs, but to find ways that a global perspective could imbue the curriculum and seep throughout the institution.

Though Palmer would plant the seed, no mission shift as far-reaching as this could be achieved without the involvement of every sector. Palmer turned to the dean of the Graduate School, Robert Jensen (also a longtime Maxwell faculty member), to chair an advisory committee on international activity at the School. The committee’s recommendations, based on a year of study, would undergird Maxwell’s international initiatives in the years to come. Meanwhile, to lay the groundwork, Palmer sought ways to deepen Maxwell’s international exposure.

He found one in Maxwell’s Executive Education Program, then a strong but undersized program. “There was real potential to expand this program by bringing higher-level international students,” says Palmer.

The program’s executive director, William Sullivan, became one of Palmer’s first hires, and is credited with developing a midcareer master’s program that attracts approximately 60 students a year, more than 50 percent from outside the United States. In addition, “Exec Ed” runs a variety of outreach, training, and consulting programs for foreign governments—such as its public administration training programs in Russia, China, India, and Vietnam—which operate both overseas and at Maxwell.

“Executive Education programs help keep the Maxwell School connected to the world, due to this constant flow of people from different countries and different governments,” says Sullivan.

A second logical place to expand was international relations itself. At the time, I.R. existed as a multidisciplinary degree program in the social-science tradition. Its curriculum stopped short of professional training. It enrolled about 20 students a year.

Palmer believed the School’s acclaimed M.P.A. program provided an advantageous position from which to develop an equivalent professional master’s program in I.R. “I thought we could take advantage of the obvious synergies,” he says. So Maxwell launched a 39-credit interdisciplinary master’s program in international relations, marked by internship and seminar opportunities across the globe. The program typically enrolls 60-70 new students each year—40 percent from outside the United States.

“Our students have a huge impact across the Maxwell School,” says Matt Bonham, chair of the program. “They’re taking classes throughout the School and, as a result, both the faculty and curriculum have become more international in focus.”

The third major piece, addressed directly in the Jensen Committee’s report, was research. The committee recommended creation of a home for interdisciplinary global research and practical outreach—the eventual Global Affairs Institute. Established in 1993, GAI extends, integrates, and focuses Maxwell’s exploration of issues raised by increasing worldwide interdependence and by challenges to quality governance worldwide.

“The Global Affairs Institute does more than bring all international research under one umbrella,” says political scientist Margaret “Peg” Hermann, GAI director. “We have an interest in the application of the knowledge we’re generating. That translation of theory into practice and practice into theory fits into Maxwell’s interdisciplinary orientation.”

Something else happened 10 years ago to bolster Maxwell’s internationalization: the Campaign for Maxwell. It funded construction of Melvin A. Eggers Hall, which provided spectacular opportunities to reprioritize international pursuits. Planning placed I.R. program offices across from the public administration department; they would share the Academic Village. Upstairs, the Global Affairs Institute would utilize a prominent office suite. Advanced information technology throughout the new building would enable distance learning and collaboration.

Key campaign gifts from Syracuse University trustees Gerald Cramer, Samuel Goekjian ’52, and Dottie Payson (the latter two members of Maxwell’s advisory board) also funded international initiatives. Cramer and Goekjian provided seed money for the creation of GAI and research and programmatic support in GAI, the I.R. program, and Executive Education. Payson’s funded international internship opportunities for I.R. students.

It doesn’t take more than a quick walk through the Maxwell complex to see—and hear—that Maxwell is a more international place. The logical result of Maxwell’s efforts to internationalize is that there are a lot more folks—both students and faculty—from all corners of the world at the School.

“A decade ago, we had a consistent number of ‘foreign students,’ and some research areas on ‘foreign’ topics,” says Associate Dean Michael Wasylenko. “Today, the international element within the School, both programmatic and in the student and faculty populations, is integral to who we are and what we’re about.”

“International activity is night-and-day different from what it was 10 years ago,” adds Stuart Thorson, professor of political science and international relations and a member of the Jensen Committee. “It wasn’t one program, but a School-wide commitment to make these things happen. It used to be you’d search for something international. Now you can’t avoid it. It’s just part of who we are.”

“There has been a dramatic increase in the number of faculty engaged in comparative research. And there are a lot more students and faculty from outside the United States,” says Bonham. “This was a deliberate effort on the part of the dean with the support of the faculty, but it’s also a reflection of what’s going on in the world.”

“It’s a cliché to say that we live in a shrinking and globalized world, but it’s also true,” adds Robert Rubinstein, director of Maxwell’s Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts. “When you train people to go into public service or even to the private sector to do various kinds of management, they’re going to come across international problems.”

For a broader mandate, look no further than Syracuse University’s new academic plan, introduced in spring 2001 by Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund. It includes internationalization and inclusion among four “signature experiences.”

“We must infuse international concerns throughout the curriculum in all disciplines and programs so that students are exposed to the ideas and challenges of a global world,” Freund says. “Maxwell has it right and has for many years. It is impossible to graduate from Maxwell without having some appreciation of the world in which we live and the international dimensions of domestic problems and issues.”

Renee Gearhart Levy is a free-lance writer, based in Fayetteville, N.Y., who specialized in higher education.