Programmatic initiatives by Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter

1.  Internationally Focused Faculty Hires. Dean Slaughter's top priority has been rebuilding the international relations component of the Woodrow Wilson School 's curriculum. She has appointed several new faculty members specializing in international affairs, including Thomas Christensen (specializing in Chinese and East Asian foreign policy); John Ikenberry (specializing in international relations theory and American foreign policy); Helen Milner (specializing in trade policy and globalization issues); and Robert Keohane (specializes in international relations).

2.  Public Policy Practitioners. Dean Slaughter has offered public policy practitioners multi-year lecturer appointments to teach at the School. Practitioners teaching at the School include Mickey Edwards (former U.S. congressman); Anthony Shorris (former New York City Commissioner of Finance and Port Authority Deputy Director); Robert Hutchings (former Director for European Affairs of the National Security Council and Special Advisor with rank of Ambassador to the Secretary of State); and Fred Hitz (former CIA Inspector-General).

3.  Diplomat-in-Residence Program. This program brings an ambassador-level career U.S. diplomat to the School each year to teach courses on international security and diplomacy, and to provide career counseling to students interested in working for the State Department. The first year's appointee was Edmund Hull, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen.

4.  Policy Outreach Initiatives. Dean Slaughter has inaugurated a number of programs designed to give Woodrow Wilson School students and faculty the opportunity to work directly with Washington policymakers, and to translate the School's research activities into actual policy initiatives.

  • Princeton Project on National Security Strategy. The School has received a grant from the Ford Foundation to fund a multi-year research program on elements of a new long-term strategy for the United States in the post-post Cold War era.

  • Office of Government Affairs. Through Princeton's Washington-based Office of Government Affairs, the Woodrow Wilson School disseminates policy briefs based on faculty research to members of Congress and their staffs. The Office also works with the School to schedule legislative briefings on Capitol Hill based on faculty research.

  • Brookings Institution Partnership. The School has entered into a teaching, research and outreach partnership with the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington-based think tank. Under the partnership, the School is able to use the Brookings distribution network for reports and articles produced by student workshops and faculty members.

5.  Placement of Graduates in Federal Government Positions. Dean Slaughter has initiated a number of programs designed to place more Woodrow Wilson School graduates in federal government service.

  • Presidential Management Fellows. The Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program is a primary gateway for graduating MPA students to take jobs in the federal government. In the past year, Dean Slaughter has convinced the program to remove its applications cap, which previously allowed only 10 percent of the graduating class to apply for the program. Every Woodrow Wilson School MPA graduate can now apply for a federal government position through the program. This year the School nominated 30 second-year MPA students for the program and 23 were selected as semi-finalists. Two of the 23 have taken other jobs and the remaining 21 will be participating in the program’s interview process.  

6.  The Daniel S. Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies. In November 2005, t he Woodrow Wilson School announced that Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, had been appointed as the first S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies, expanding the School's expertise in this important area. In addition to teaching, Ambassador Kurtzer will work with the School's Office of Graduate Career Services to provide career counseling, and to bring together at Princeton officials from the Middle East and the United States to develop strategies for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.