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the Director
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 two years of existence, we have made rapid progress in a variety of interesting and useful areas. Our achievements are understandably outpacing peoples’ recognition of IPIA and public understanding of what IPIA is. IPIA is an “umbrella” institute that includes a few well-known centers and institutes already in existence at The University of Utah. For example, the Hinckley Institute of Politics, the Center for Public Policy & Administration, and the Siciliano Forum are under the IPIA “umbrella.” This doesn’t mean that any of these centers or institutes is less important than it was before—quite the opposite. IPIA is bringing units such as these together with faculty from across the College and the University to tackle important societal problems in Utah, the U.S. and around the globe.
IPIA is also an entrepreneurial focal point for new programs. As new areas of opportunity arise, we will create new centers, institutes, and programs in IPIA to work on them. For example, a generous gift has already allowed us to create a new center, the Barbara L. and Norman C. Tanner Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy. This Center is working actively with faculty from across CSBS, the S. J. Quinney College of Law, and the College of Humanities on a series of initiatives to address issues of human rights, human dignity and violence that crosses international borders. This Center is serving as a wonderful model of “what can be done” and as a call to action for others with interests and passion in these areas.
The early benefits of IPIA are encouraging and very exciting. You will find information about IPIA’s achievements and works-in-progress, and therefore I will not list them. I cannot resist mentioning a few, however. The new Master of Public Policy program started in fall 2006. A study on the effects of Mexico and Mexican-Americans on the economy of Utah was highly influential in this year of high attention to our border to the south. A study was completed in spring 2007 on the status of Pacific Islanders in Utah. Papers presented at the November 2005 Siciliano Forum were published as a book, Societies and Cities in the Age of Instant Access, by Springer Academic Press (2007, edited by Professor Harvey Miller).
In Donald Nichol’s farewell notes as director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (Spring-Summer 2006), he reflects on the opportunities for schools and institutes of public affairs in the modern university. “The ace card of public affairs is that . . . the problems of our society are increasingly problems of governance. Our subject is becoming more and more important. The opening for schools [and institutes] of public affairs lies in the . . . practice of approaching research from the direction of the problem to be solved, not from the direction of a methodology to be used and improved.”
IPIA’s future lies where public policy, politics, and governance intersect domestically and in the international context. Its 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 the public. We intend to “play our ace card”—and play it well.
-J. Steven Ott