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Welcome to the Institute of Public and International Affairs at The University of Utah, or as most of us know it, simply “IPIA.” In IPIA’s first four years of existence, we have already made important contributions to the quality of life at The University of Utah and in the State of Utah, the nation, and targeted areas around the globe.
Organizationally, IPIA is an “umbrella” institute that houses several dynamic and well-known centers and institutes at The University of Utah including, for example, the Hinckley Institute of Politics, Center for Public Policy & Administration, Siciliano Forum, and the Barbara and Norman Tanner Center for Non-violent Human Rights Advocacy. IPIA also houses three graduate degree programs, the Master of Public Administration (MPA), Master of Public Policy (MPP), and Master of International Affairs and Global Enterprise (MIAGE). IPIA thus provides opportunities to bring faculty, units, and degree programs such as these together from across the College and the University into partnerships that tackle important societal problems.
IPIA is also the focal point for entrepreneurial new programs that do not fit neatly into existing academic departments. As new opportunities arise, we create new centers and programs in IPIA to work on them. A few recent examples include the Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy (2005); Executive MPA programs with Zayed University in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, UAE (2007) and with Hainan Province, China (2008); MIAGE (2008); a graduate certificate program in Disability Studies (2008); joint degree programs such as the MPA/MSW (2008), MPA/MPH (2009) and MPP/MPH (2009); and hopefully, an undergraduate minor degree in Disability Studies (2010).
You will find information about many of IPIA’s newest research projects and achievements in works-in-progress, and thus I will not list all of them here. I cannot resist mentioning a few, however. IPIA faculty members have received grants for several important new studies including; “The Integration of the Undocumented and Documented in a New Destination: Utah,” “Neighborhood Characteristics and Body Mass Index: Selection or Causation?,” “The Role of Time Use in Promoting Health Energy Balance,” and “The Impact of Transnational Corporations on Innovation and Regional Development in China”, among others.
As for teaching, the new joint MPP/MPH and MPA/MPH programs started in fall 2009. The first Executive MPA cohort from Hainan Province (China) graduated and the second cohort started its 16-month MPA program in May 2009. The third cohort of Executive MPA students at Zayed University (Dubai and Abu Dhabi, UAE) started in August 2009.
IPIA’s future lies where public policy, politics, and governance intersect in Utah, the United States, and around the world. IPIA’s value to The University of Utah, the state, nation and world will depend on how well we build academic respectability and legitimacy in the eyes of scholars and the public. I hope that all of this is as exciting for you as it is for us.
-J. Steven Ott