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INSIDE Newsmakers.................... 2 2009 jazz concert photos............................. 4 PittNewspaper of the University of PittsburghChronicle Volume X • Number 31 • November 16, 2009 Phil Williams Named Posvar Chair, Director of Matthew B. Ridgway Center The City of Pittsburgh’s For International Security Studies By Amanda Leff Ritchie Unfair-share Tax Phil Williams, Pitt professor of public This is the print version of which would place one of the region’s key and international affairs, has been named those portions of Chancellor economic engines at a clear competitive the holder of the Wesley W. Posvar Chair in disadvantage, is even more striking. International Security Studies within Pitt’s Mark A. Nordenberg’s Nov. 11, As calculated today, the amount of Graduate School of Public and International 2009, report to the Senate Council this tuition tax would range from $27 for Affairs (GSPIA). He is also the new direc- that relate to the city’s proposed a CCAC student to more than $400 for a tor of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for CMU student, with the typical Pitt charge International Security Studies, which is part “tuition tax.” falling somewhere in between. That itself is of both GSPIA and Pitt’s University Center a burden, and it is critical to remember that for International Studies (UCIS). Four months and eleven days into this is just today’s calculation. One week “Phil Williams will do an outstanding the new fiscal year, we still are waiting ago, the city administration was advocating job as Posvar Chair and Ridgway Center for the Commonwealth’s budget, includ- for a tax tied to a percentage calculation that director,” said John T.S. Keeler, dean of ing our appropriation, to be finalized. To included not only tuition but also room and GSPIA. “His stature as one of the world’s some extent, we are being held hostage to board charges and other fees, which would leading experts on transnational organized disagreements over particular provisions have produced an even higher number. And, crime will attract a steady flow of scholars in gaming legislation now under consider- if the city is allowed to collect 1 percent and officials to the center. In addition, as ation. We also are the victims of an unusu- today, there is nothing that stands in the one of GSPIA’s most inspiring and popular ally contentious climate in the Capitol. way of it collecting a higher percentage in teachers, he is well positioned to engage our Almost every day, I get messages that some the future. students in Ridgway activities.” Phil Williams small steps in a positive direction have been Also, because the imposition of this tax Williams, who previously served as taken in Harrisburg. Those messages are is tied to the vague concept of the “privi- the Ridgway Center director from 1992 ungoverned spaces, and drug trafficking a cause for some hope, but we still do not lege” of engaging in some activity within through 2001, has published extensively in through West Africa. In 2007-09, he was a have an appropriation, and even as the state the borders of the City of Pittsburgh, there the field of international security, includ- visiting research professor at the Strategic is failing to give, the city is attempting to is almost no limit to what might become the ing the books Crisis Management (Wiley, Studies Institute, the U.S. Army War Col- take away. target of future tax efforts. Even in the last 1976), The Senate and U.S. Troops in lege, where he wrote two monographs—The All of you, I am sure, have read of few days, the mayor was considering, to give Europe (St. Martin’s Press, 1986), and, New Dark Age: The Decline of the State the mayor’s plan, announced on Monday one other concrete example, the imposition with Mike Bowker, Superpower Detente: and U.S. Strategy (U.S. Army War College, [Nov. 9, 2009], to impose a tuition tax on of a tax on the privilege of receiving medical A Reappraisal (Sage Publications Ltd, 2008) and Criminals, Militias, and Insur- all students attending institutions of higher treatment in the city. 1987). During the last gents: Organized Crime learning in the City of Pittsburgh. As you Two tellingly differing perspectives 16 years, his research Williams has been a in Iraq (U.S. Army War also know, the education and health ser- on the city’s authority to collect a tuition has focused primarily College, 2009). vices sector has become an increasingly tax without legislative authorization were on transnational orga- consultant to both the Williams received his important part of the regional economy offered in an article in Wednesday [Nov. 11] nized crime and he PhD degree from the Uni- measured in virtually every way, but espe- morning’s edition of the Pittsburgh Post- has written articles on United Nations Office of versity of Southampton, cially in terms of job growth. We now are Gazette. The chair of the Senate Education various aspects of this England, and his bachelor’s the region’s largest employment sector and Committee stated clearly that such a tax subject in the journals Drugs and Crime and U.S. and master’s degrees from are the only sector that has added jobs each could not be imposed without legislative Survival, Washington the University College of and every year since 1995. approval. He then went on to say, “When Quarterly, The Bul- government agencies and Wales. If the mayor’s plan was to become law, times already are tough for students and letin on Narcotics, also has given The University of we also would be the nation’s only higher families, why would we add to this expense Crime Law and Social Pittsburgh established the education sector subject to such taxation. and why would Pittsburgh put itself at Change, and Inter- congressional testimony Posvar Chair to honor late Particularly given the very positive national such a disadvantage, particularly to tax an national Peacekeep- Pitt chancellor Wesley and international attention that Pittsburgh enterprise (higher education) that is actually ing, and in Scientific on organized crime. He Posvar, who died on July has received for the remarkable develop- working in their city?” American. In addi- 27, 2001. Posvar, who had ment of its “new knowledge economy,” tion, Williams was was a joint author for a been a Brigadier General in the self-defeating nature of this approach, Continued on page 2 founding editor of the the U.S. Air Force, served journal Transnational United Nations study on as chancellor of the Uni- Organized Crime and versity from 1967 to 1991 A UNIFIED, RESOUNDING “NO” has edited several pub- offshore financial centers and was renowned for his lications on combat- early recognition of the ing organized crime and money laundering. importance of international and the trafficking of Most recently, he has studies, establishing UCIS women. during his years as Pitt’s Williams has been focused on alliances leader. He was a trustee of a consultant to both the the Carnegie Endowment United Nations Office among criminal organiza- for International Peace, of Drugs and Crime an advisory trustee of the and U.S. government tions, as well as on terror- Rand Corporation, and a agencies and also has founder and president of given congressional ist finances, drugs, and the International Studies testimony on orga- violence in Mexico, and Association. The Posvar nized crime. He was Chair is always held by the a joint author for a complexity theory and professor who also serves United Nations study as director of Pitt’s Ridg- on offshore financial intelligence analysis. way Center. centers and money The Matthew B. Ridg- laundering. Most recently, he has focused way Center for International Security MIKE DRAZDZINSKI/CIDDE on alliances among criminal organizations, Studies was established at the University Eight local college and university presidents held a Nov. 10 news conference Downtown to voice their as well as on terrorist finances, drugs and of Pittsburgh in 1988 under the auspices of opposition to the mayor of Pittsburgh’s proposed 1 percent privilege tax on tuition for undergraduate college violence in Mexico, and complexity theory GSPIA and UCIS. Dedicated to the Ameri- students in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education (PCHE) organized the conference and and intelligence analysis. In 2001 and can general whom many historians credit participants vowed to fight the proposed tax. “We cannot afford to have extra burdens placed upon our 2002, Williams spent a year at the U.S. with saving the U.S. position after China’s students,” said Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg (above). Behind Nordenberg, from left, are Candace Computer Emergency Readiness Team, intervention in the Korean War, the center Introcaso, La Roche College president; Mary Hines, Carlow University president and PCHE chair; and Paul where he worked on intelligence analysis addresses in innovative ways new security for cyberthreats and financial cybercrime. challenges facing the United States and the Hennigan, Point Park University president. He also has worked on terrorist finances, international community. 2 • Pitt Chronicle • November 16, 2009 The City of Pittsburgh’s Newsmakers Unfair-share Tax Continued from page 1 DIPPY SIDES The executive director of the House WITH THE PANTHERS Finance Committee offered a different opin- ion. He stated that the city probably did not Dippy gets into the Pitt spirit, sport- need state approval and noted that the Local ing a 20-foot Pitt Panther scarf. The Tax Enabling Act’s nickname was “the tax dinosaur stands proudly outside the anything act.” If he is correct in his inter- pretation, that is the type of over-reaching Carnegie Museum of Natural History legislation that every citizen should fear.