by Tarang Jain

In Spring 2023, Dean Yarhi-Milo of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) announced a curriculum review that could potentially lead to a substantial transformation of the degrees and programs at SIPA as they stand today. The last curriculum overhaul was done 16 years ago in 2007. 

Growing concerns among SIPA students over the relevance of specific mandatory courses were echoed in an article written by a fellow SIPA student on April 3 titled "Beyond Exams: SIPA Needs Policy Education that Reflects Real-World Demands." Information on an ongoing curriculum review keeps on trickling in, and relatively little information is available to students on what precisely the Committee is doing. 

The Curriculum Review Committee is led by SIPA’s former Dean, Lisa Anderson. Other members of the Committee include directors of different concentrations and specializations at SIPA. The current Committee does not include any SIPA students.

The Morningside Post had the opportunity to sit down with Prof. Anderson and Dean Yarhi-Milo to delve into the details and progress of the curriculum review. The review process commenced in the summer of 2023 with an initial scoping of other top policy schools in the United States, such as the Harvard Kennedy School and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and their respective curriculums. This was done to gauge where SIPA stands in comparison. The scoping also involved discussions with SIPA alumni and employers from various industries to gain insights into the skills and expertise sought by potential employers.  The Committee officially started meeting in September 2023 and has been meeting weekly since. 

According to Dean Yarhi-Milo, the core idea behind the curriculum review is to structure the curriculum that is “in line with the current policy landscape” and offers SIPA graduates the competitive advantage they need to excel professionally. 

One of the ways the Committee seeks to do that is by clearly differentiating between the Masters in International Affairs (MIA) and Masters in Public Administration (MPA) degree programs. Professor Anderson acknowledged that, in their current form, the MIA and MPA programs at SIPA need more distinction. She admitted the similarity was not very "smart," given the difference in the skills required to excel in these respective fields and their competitive environments. She emphasized the Committee's focus on shaping these programs to be more unique and “sufficiently distinctive” while maintaining their competitiveness beyond SIPA. Dean Yarhi-Milo, acknowledging the existing concerns students have expressed with the core courses, emphasized that the Committee is looking at ways to balance the core curriculum that “is aligned with the things that [students] want to do and pursue.” For instance, one of the things that the Committee has been debating is how to reorient MIA programs to reduce the course load of economics and quant core courses compared to MPA programs, depending on the concentrations chosen by the student. 

Prof. Anderson highlighted that one of the Committee's priorities is to sharpen the focus on the design of degree programs. This would involve administratively streamlining and consolidating the concentrations and specializations to equip students with practical skills and build their theoretical understanding of critical issues. This also includes injecting some flexibility into the core requirements by making courses such as Conceptual Foundations of International Relations optional (for students who demonstrate a prior understanding of the subject) as well as incorporating courses on advocacy and communication, research methods, and policy writing into the core curriculum. The Committee also plans to introduce a new course called "Ethics of Policy Making" - an idea directly inspired by the Harvard Kennedy School's curriculum. 

One of the major concerns for many students is the need for more focus on non-western discourse in international affairs at SIPA. This is of particular concern, given that the majority of SIPA students come from countries outside the US. While Professor Anderson recognized the parochial scope of the curriculum, she emphasized that given the influence that the United States has in global politics, it is "an opportunity to understand how that mind works." She did admit that the faculty is discussing ways to make the curriculum more holistic to facilitate a better understanding of global affairs. 

In terms of how the Committee was ensuring that students' concerns and feedback were incorporated into the ongoing discussions, TMP was informed that the Committee was engaging with students through various channels. These include student surveys, monthly lunches with Dean Yarhi-Milo, and informal one-off meetings with Prof. Anderson. While Prof. Anderson reached out to the 2023 SIPASA board to organize focus groups or town halls with students, formal mechanisms that facilitate direct interaction with the students have yet to be set up. 

On the Committee's current state and progress, Prof. Anya Schiffrin Director of the Technology, Media & Communications (TMaC) specialization at SIPA, highlighted the importance of "keeping our curriculum up-to-date and [making] sure we provide skills that our students will need in the future." Taking that into account, TMaC has added multiple tech governance and AI policy courses over the last decade. 

TMP also contacted other concentration and specialization directors but received no comments. 

The ongoing curriculum overhaul is expected to be implemented in the Fall of 2025. 

Tarang Jain (MIA ‘25) is the Editor-in-Chief for The Morningside Post.