2019 | 2020 Annual Report
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Academic Calendar 2019 | 2020 Annual Report Columbia Global Centers Rio de Janeiro Cover Picture: Manoela Darcy de Oliveira Miranda, Columbia Law School 2014 Alumna INDEX 05 09 12 14 Letter from the Columbia Introduction Columbia Students Timeline of Global Centers | Rio de and Researchers Brazilians at Janeiro Director, Thomas from Brazil Columbia J. Trebat 16 18 22 38 46 Ready for more history? How many programs Programs Publications Adapting to the did we have? 2019 -2020 Pandemic Era: Program highlights Columbia Global Centers | Rio de Janeiro 50 52 53 54 60 Webinars curated Webinars in Partnership Visit our YouTube Columbia Global Global Columbia by Columbia Global with other Columbia Channel to watch all Centers mobilized Collaboratory Centers | Rio de Janeiro Global Centers Webinars virtual internships around the globe 62 66 72 74 78 Groundbreaking Faculty Advisory Columbia Global Columbia Global Columbia Global work at Columbia to Committee for Columbia Centers | Rio Centers | Rio de Centers | Rio de combat the Covid Global Centers | Rio de de Janeiro - Janeiro - Partners Janeiro - Team pandemic Janeiro and Santiago Founders Circle 2 3 as President Bollinger reminds us, of the strengths we at Columbia have as a university to deal with the hard reality of our existence. Dear friends of the Our University and, by extension, Columbia’s Columbia Global Center in Brazil has a vital role to play in the search for Center in Rio, “fundamental knowledge” and carrying this through to the care of others, no matter how strange and frightening the times. The pages of this, our 2019- In his dedicatory 2020 Annual Report, provide remarks that preface a glimpse of how the Global this year’s issue of our Center has interpreted and Annual Report, Columbia then adjusted its approach President Lee Bollinger calls in order to carry our mission our attention to “strange to the best of our ability and frightening times”, and within the limits of our for the United States, resources. for New York City, and for Columbia University. Before the pandemic hit with Certainly, the times are its full fury in early 2020, we strange and frightening observed a steady growth in Brazil as well in 2020 in our core programs, such and, therefore, also for as the Columbia Women’s Columbia’s Global Center in Leadership Network Brazil. Everywhere we look, program and our activities it seems, we behold disease in public management and and despair, worsening laid plans for new programs. economic hardship, and We brought many Columbia deepening frustration professors to Brazil and among those who demand saw off a large number social justice. While it is of Brazilian students and not what we would ever Visiting Scholars traveling wish for, these strange to New York to pursue and frightening times unite studies at the University. our two countries, our two We managed to re-launch peoples, and the Columbia our activities focused on the community in New York and environment and on climate here in Brazil. change, in particular, in So it is well to remember, collaboration with the iconic Earth Institute at Columbia. 4 5 In a very special way, we are grateful for the support of so many of you. Our donors and sponsors should know of our lasting Starting in early 2020, gratitude. Without them, the Global Center has nothing could be done. Then the world changed. migrated to a completely With their support, we are online format and the past free to continue imagining several months have been a better future for the a whirlwind of webinars, Rio Global Center. Our social media postings, many partners in Brazil and intensive interaction are a constant source of with our partners in Brazil inspiration and motivation and at Columbia. We to band together to make have covered in our online a difference in Brazil. Of programs many topics course, our staff at the Rio of interest to Brazil and Global Center is practically to the world, including tireless in its commitment dialogues on public health to our mission and always featuring our medical at the ready with new faculty at Columbia and ideas to bring Brazil and examination of the global Columbia closer together. economic crisis and To all of your, our friends possible solutions. It has and partners, we send our been a busy and, I would greetings and best wishes say, productive period in as we navigate together which our mission has these truly strange times! been refined and our partnerships in Brazil strengthened by a firmer grounding in the “hard realities of our existence”, Sincerely, as President Bollinger Thomas J Trebat wrote. Director 6 7 Greetings from the COLUMBIA Columbia Global GLOBAL Centers | Rio de Janeiro | Rio de Janeiro CENTERS We are very proud to be a part of the Columbia University community and honored as well to be part of a hub of academic excellence in Brazil alongside our many Brazilian partners. As annual reports are supposed to do, the pages of this year’s report will give an account of our internal workings. But we are hoping for more than that. Our goal is to engage you in a more personal way with a glimpse also at the people behind the facts and numbers of the Rio Global Center. What do the numbers that track our activities really mean? In addition to knowing how many Brazilians have benefited from an education at Columbia, what did their accomplishments mean for Brazil? How did Columbia programs add to their professional and personal lives? And how was the Columbia community affected by the influx of Brazilian students and scholars? These are some of the questions we are hoping to answer by introducing you to a few of the people who collaborate closely with the Rio Global Center. As this Annual Report is being released, Brazil is experiencing hard times with a dual crisis of public health and an economic recession. Mindful of this context, we hope this publication will be a breath of fresh air in showcasing what we are trying to do to contribute: supporting local research, encouraging thoughtful debate on the most important issues of our day, connecting our Brazilian partners to Columbia faculty, and doing all that we can to foster exchanges that can move us toward a more equal and just society. 8 9 President Lee Bollinger, Columbia University These strange and frightening times have most certainly deepened our collective appreciation of the University’s many vital roles in society, beginning with the search for fundamental knowledge and carried through to the care of humanity and the world…. And one can only feel thankful for our universities and for Columbia, in particular. New York City is almost always the epicenter of crises that strike this nation, and Columbia University in the City of New York is, therefore, too. This is not exactly to be wished for, but it does create, over time, an intellectual character that is grounded in the hard realities of existence. And, on balance, inhabiting a space imbued with that character is where I would rather be. I trust that view is shared by everyone at Columbia. 10 11 Brazil, open to and equal for all. He was a fervent disciple Annual Report June 2020 of the great John Dewey himself and helped spread Columbia Students and Researchers from Brazil Dewey’s educational philosophy throughout Brazil Just as Brazil began to discover Columbia in earnest more than a century ago, Brazil’s presence and influence on the We are always pleased to report, as we do each year, a large campus has grown to the point that, today, Brazil is one of census of Brazilians in residence at Columbia University in New the most important sending nations to the University. York. We are not always mindful to look back into the past, to see who has come before us and who helped to build the bridge on In terms of total student enrollment (2018-19 for graduate which we now labor to connect Brazil with Columbia. and undergraduate), Brazil ranks seventh in terms of total sending countries, with enrollments comparable to those Information from the University Archives suggest that the first of France and the U.K. and ahead of Germany. Brazilian Brazilian student to graduate from the University may have students can be found in practically every school and been L.H.F. D’Aguiar, Jr., who received two Columbia degrees the program of the University, with the largest cohorts in medicine in 1866 and 1868. Dr. D’Aguiar, who was the son of attending the Graduate School of Business, the School Brazil’s Consul-General to the United States, was also awarded a of Professional Studies, the School of Engineering prize by the University for excellence in clinical medicine. Several and Applied Sciences, the School of International and other Brazilians followed in the 1870s. Luis de Sousa Barros was Professional Studies and Columbia College, the main a member of the graduating class of 1877 in the then School of undergraduate school. In seven years since the launch Mines. Sousa Barros was one of the first two students of color of the Global Center in Brazil, the number of Brazilians ever to graduate from Columbia University. One year later, in enrolled in formal degree programs has roughly doubled to 1878, José Nabor Pacheco Jordão graduated with a degree in civil 200 per year, with some year-to-year variation.* engineering and went on to do post-graduate work at the University before returning to São Paulo. Upon his return to Brazil, Jordão The enrolled student figures as such tell only a part of the authored what must have been one of the earliest Portuguese- story of the Brazilian community at Columbia in terms of language textbooks in chemistry based upon his classroom notes its size and impact.