SIPAnews winter 2000 / VOLUME XIiI NO.1 1 From the Dean Lisa Anderson takes stock of SIPA in the new millenium. 2 Economist Robert Mundell is Columbias latest Nobel Prize winner. 3 Professor Kathleen Molz takes a critical look at Internet filters. 4 Dear SIPA 99 grad Jun Choi tells us about life on the campaign trail. 5 Alumni Profile: John Neuffer Cold pizza leads to 15 minutes of fame for SIPA grad. 6 Alumni Forum: Cecelia Caruso Alumna fights for textbooks for New York children of color. 8 Executive MPA Program makes SIPA debut. 7 Schoolwide News 10 13 MPA Program News Six SIPA students bring love and laughter to Kosovo refugees. 14 MIA Program News 15 Urban Affairs 12 17 Faculty News SIPA student groups offer something for everyone. 20 Staff News 21 Class Notes SIPA news 1 Our more recent alumni- should we call you the ele- vator classes?-continue to remember the faculty as having a profound impact on their lives and careers. From the Dean: Lisa Anderson Raise a Glass to SIPA As Clock Strikes Midnight ebrate them. We and the economics energy and other resources to conduct department bask in the reflected glory their own research and policy analysis. of Professor Robert Mundells Nobel We at SIPA have enjoyed and profited Prize, of course, but also enjoy the from their dedication to teaching and honors and awards a number of other to strengthening our institution, and at faculty are collecting, including long last we are in a position to recip- Robert Liebermans Trilling Prize for rocate what they have done for us. his book, Shifting the Color Line, With generous support from the Richard Nelsons invitation to deliver University Provosts Office as well as the prestigious Tinbergen Lecture in help from several private donors, we the Netherlands, and John Ruggies are establishing an Office of Sponsored Distinguished Scholar Award from Research, to be directed by an Associ- the International Studies Association. ate Dean for Research and staffed by All of you who have spent time several professional grant writers and at SIPA know the extraordinary talent administrators. This initiative is s the last semester of the of our faculty. From the reminiscences designed to assist the faculty and millennium draws to of what we are coming to call the research associates of the School in an end at SIPA, we brownstone classes those who obtaining financial support for their have ample reason to went to school here before we moved research, in developing local and inter- celebrate. As the books into the tallest building on the cam- national collaborative research net- closed on the fiscal year pus we know that Andrew Cordier, works, and in disseminating the results Alast June, we recorded one of our most Istvan Deák, Henry Graff, Lou of the research done under the auspices successful years at fund-raising Henkin, J.C. Hurewitz, Charles Issawi, of the School more widely and more thanks in no small measure to the work Jim Morley, Philip Mosely, Marshall effectively to both academic and pol- of our dedicated class chair volunteers Shulman and many, many other icy audiences. We want to develop and the chair of the Annual Fund, remarkable faculty changed peoples our working papers series, to put Ralph Hellmold (MIA 64). Over the lives decades ago. Our more recent more of the facultys research on our summer we secured funding for a new alumni should we call you the ele- Web site, to make it easier for our fac- Center on Energy, Marine Transporta- vator classes? continue to remem- ulty to travel to conduct research or tion and Public Policy, and in Septem- ber the faculty as having a profound provide policy advice. After all, our ber we welcomed a new director for impact on their lives and careers. As I students are only with us for two the African Institute, Professor Mah- travel to meet alumni, people ask after years, and our faculty continue to mood Mamdani, one of Africas most Dick Betts, Jagdish Bhagwati, Coralie have wonderful ideas, serious policy distinguished social scientists. The Bryant, Doug Chalmers, Steve Cohen, insights, important empirical findings students who joined us this fall make Gerry Curtis, Bob Jervis, Paul Martin, from which we think our alumni and up one of the most selective classes in Katharine Morgan, Madeleine Zelin other policy makers would benefit, our history, a credit both to the and many other denizens of this build- no matter where they are. attractions of living in New York and ing. Let us hope that with this initia- to the persuasive recruiting of Associ- All of these faculty have made tive we will be greeting the 21st cen- ate Dean Robin Lewis and his team names for themselves while they tury better prepared for the challenges in the Office of Student Affairs. worked hard for their students, design- and opportunities it will bring. Cer- All these achievements also reflect ing curricula, directing institutes, con- tainly, I am more confident knowing the intrinsic merit of the School and of centrations and programs, teaching that the students we have sent out to the faculty who are at its heart, so it is courses. They taught us well, but too make our world more secure, more particularly gratifying to be able to cel- often they have had to sacrifice time, just and more prosperous have been SIPA news 1 Columbia economist lauded for research on common Crossroads currencies, capital flows Mundell Wins Nobel Prize markets. shoulders, and his wife, standing on The Nobel citation underscores, either side of President Reagan, who in particular, work done by Mundell is smiling broadly. in the late 1960s which illuminated Mundell described with relish the relationship between floating his upstart beginnings as a young exchange rates and monetary policy. economist in the early 1960s. Mundell, who suggested the creation My work was very controver- of what he then called the europa as sial, he recalled. The first example early as 1969, dismisses suggestions of that was a paper I wrote at the that he is the father of the euro. International Monetary Fund which Maybe a godfather, he concedes. advocated a completely different Seth Weissman, who teaches monetary and fiscal policy mix than international economics at SIPA, is what the United States and the IMF less restrained. The European Union were advocating. It was a recommen- exists because of him, Weissman dation that the United States shift said.Except for Keynes, theres no from a policy of easy money and high one else this century whos had that taxes to a tax cut and tight money kind of impact. tight money to correct the balance of Robert Mundell with Mundell, 67, has been a faculty payments, and tax cuts to spur the wife, Valerie, and son By Kareem Fahim member at Columbia since 1974, and economy. Then, of course, President Nicholas, 2. n his 1949 high school year- is currently the C. Lowell Harriss Kennedy, when the economy kept book photograph, Columbias Professor of Economics. He was getting worse under (the old) policy newest Nobel Prize winner, attending a conference in Sweden mix, did shift course and he shifted to Robert Mundell, is staring into when the award was announced on exactly my policy mix. the middle distance, seemingly Oct. 13, but returned to New York That change well it didnt lost in thought. Was he worried for his SIPA class on international exactly make my position at the Fund Iabout finding a date for the spring monetary theory and policy the fol- any better. Being wrong is one thing, fling? Troubled by teen angst? Proba- lowing Monday. As Mundell entered but being right is even worse, he bly not. As young as age 17, Mundell the classroom, clutching a cup of cof- said, laughing at the memory. was preoccupied with exchange rates fee and smiling sheepishly, his stu- The Nobel committee made little and monetary policy. dents rose and applauded. mention in its citation of Mundells I became intrigued with the The prize carries with it a cash work on supply side economics. He devaluation of the sterling area cur- award of $975,000. Mundell said he said he understands that decision, even rencies in 1949. I couldnt find a plans to buy a pony for his son though he believes that his supply-side good answer for the meaning of Nicholas, 2, and complete renovations work paved the way for the current those devaluations; my teachers on his second home, Santa Colomba, a economic boom. I think they were werent much of a help, the newspa- 500-year-old villa in Tuscany, where wise, in a way, not to mention this, pers were not much of a help. Mundell and his second wife, Valerie, because this is a big political issue, and So, Mundell taught himself. Last host lavish luncheons for friends, many will be for a long time. October, a lifetime of hard work and of them artists and actors. Mundell is The tax cuts he prescribed, and academic brilliance paid off when he also an accomplished and prolific the subsequent expansion of the was awarded the Nobel Prize in Eco- painter, and has three grown children economy, in his estimation, left a nomics. The Royal Swedish Academy from a previous marriage. legacy that made President Clintons of Sciences praised the Canada-born At home in his comfortable, job a lot easier, and also Alan economist for choosing his problems cluttered apartment a few blocks Greenspans job a lot easier. with uncommon almost prophetic from Columbia, Mundell stepped accuracy in terms of predicting the over Nicholass toys and sat down on Kareem Fahim (MIA 01) is studying future development of international the sofa.