Columbia Opens Global Centres

John Richard Schrock
Beijing in China and Amman in Jordan are the sites of the first two Columbia Global Centers, a markedly different departure from the standard branch campuses built by many universities around the world to promote exchanges and attract foreign students. Columbia University President Lee C Bollinger opened the Beijing centre last Friday week while the Middle East Research Center in Amman opened two days later.
The private, 250-year-old New York-based Columbia University is one of America's elite Ivy League institutions and is one of only two in the US to have been founded by Royal Charter under King George II.
Kenneth Prewitt, Vice-president of Columbia Global Centers and Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, describes the creation of the global centres as the "next stage in the long evolution of international study".
This is not taking the Columbia campus abroad, he explains, nor is it an attempt to establish Columbia's presence internationally. The university, top ranked for research and its teaching college, has a long history of involvement in international studies as well as of international students on its campus.
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Source: University World News, Issue No: 0069 29 March 2009