To provide a professional education that simultaneously adheres to the highest standards of scholarship and takes a practical approach to training students for international leadership. To conduct scholarly research related to the concerns of public and private institutions of the United States and governments of other countries and disseminate that research to a broad audience concerned with foreign relations. To offer mid-career educational opportunities for those already working in international affairs.
SAIS is a global school with campuses in three continents. It has nearly 550 full-time students in Washington, D.C., 180 full-time students in Bologna, Italy and about 100 full-time students in Nanjing, China. Of these, 60% come from the United States and 40% from more than 66 other countries. Around 50% are women and 22% are U.S. minority groups. The SAIS Bologna Center is the only full-time international relations graduate program in Europe that operates under an American higher-education system, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, which teaches courses in both Chinese and English, is jointly administered by SAIS and Nanjing University.
Since 1990, SAIS and the Fletcher School have been the only non-law schools in the United States to participate in the prestigious Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Although SAIS students obviously enter the competition with a comparative disadvantage (all of those against whom they compete have at least a year of law school training), they have performed very well. SAIS has twice placed second overall out of 12 schools and advanced to the "final four" in its region. In head-to-head competitions, SAIS has defeated law schools such as Georgetown, Maryland, and Virginia.
A College of William & Mary study examined graduate international relations programs throughout the United States, interviewing over 1,000 professionals in the field, with the results subsequently published in the November/December 2005 issue of Foreign Policy (FP) magazine. One of study's questions asked: "What do you consider the top five terminal masters programs in international relations for students looking to pursue a policy career?" From the study, 65% of respondents named Johns Hopkins University-SAIS as being the top-ranked program. SAIS received the most votes, followed by Georgetown (Walsh), Harvard (Kennedy), Tufts (Fletcher), and Columbia (SIPA), respectively. In 2007, Foreign Policy magazine produced the same study, and although SAIS stayed as one of the top-ranked programs, it moved to second position as Georgetown (Walsh) received the most votes.
History
SAIS was founded in 1943 by Paul H. Nitze and Christian Herter and became part of The Johns Hopkins University in 1950. The school was established during World War II by a group of statesmen who sought new methods of preparing men and women to cope with the international responsibilities that would be thrust upon the United States in the postwar world.
The founders assembled a faculty of scholars and professionals (often borrowed from local universities) to teach international relations, international economics, and foreign languages to a small group of students. The curriculum was designed to be both scholarly and practical. The natural choice for the location of the school was Washington, D.C., a city where international resources are abundant and where American foreign policy is shaped and set in motion. When the school opened in 1944, 15 students were enrolled.[1]
In 1955, the school created the Bologna Center in Italy, the first full-time graduate school located in Europe under the American higher-education system. By 1963, SAIS outgrew its first quarters on Florida Avenue and moved to one of its present buildings on Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington DC. In 1986, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center was created in Nanjing, China, completing the school's global presence.
Research Centers
Central Asia-Caucasus Institute
Center For Constitutional Studies And Democratic Development (Italy)
Center for Displacement Studies
Center for International Business and Public Policy
Center for Strategic Education
Center for Transatlantic Relations
The Dialogue Project
Foreign Policy Institute
Hopkins-Nanjing Research Center (China)
Institute for International Research (China)
International Energy and Environment Program (IEEP)
International Reporting Project
Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies
Protection Project
Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies
Schwartz Forum on Constructive Capitalism
SME Institute
Swiss Foundation for World Affairs
U.S.-Korea Institute
Publications
In addition to the different books and periodicals edited by SAIS departements or research centers, several school-wide publications are to be mentioned:
Guide To Experts in International Affairs, published every two years.
SAIS Observer is a student-written, student-run newspaper.
SAISphere, published annually, features articles about current issues in international affairs, alumni class notes, as well as happenings at the school's campuses.
SAIS Reports, a newsletter published bimonthly from September through May, highlights new faculty, research institutes, academic programs, student and alumni accomplishments as well as major events at the school.
SAIS Review, founded in 1956, journal dedicated to advancing the debate on leading contemporary issues of world affairs.
Working Paper Series, managed by the PhD students.
Prominent past and present faculty and administrators
Lucius D. Battle - former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and Africa, and President, Middle East Institute; founded SAIS Foreign Policy Institute
David P. Calleo - Director of European Studies, author of Rethinking Europe's Future
Rajiv Chandrasekaran - Associate Editor, The Washington Post; former SAIS journalist-in-residence for the International Reporting Project; author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
Eliot A. Cohen - Professor of Strategic Studies, current Counselor to the U.S. Department of State, author of Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War and Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime
April Glaspie - American diplomat, first woman to be appointed an American ambassador to an Arab country, best known as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the 1991Gulf War
Frank Lavin - U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, former U.S. ambassador to Singapore
Jim Leach - former U.S. Congressman from Iowa, former Chair of U.S. House of Representatives Banking & Financial Institutions Committee and former Chair of Asia Pacific Subcommittee of the House International Affairs Committee, current faculty at Princeton University