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monroe
James E. Russell
Paul Monroe
Isaac L. Kandel
George S. Counts
George Z. F. Bereday
R. Freeman Butts
Harold J. Noah
William C. Sayres

CIE/IED Alumni Day
Celebrating our Past, Looking to a Bright Future

Sunday, March 16, 2008

To commemorate the 52nd Annual Meetings of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), the Comparative and International Education Programs of the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College will hold a special pre-conference Alumni Day to recognize and reflect upon the accomplishments of graduates from the Comparative and International Education (CIE) and International Educational Development (IED) programs at TC. Over the past twenty years, TC has graduated over 900 students from the CIE and IED programs. TC graduates have gone on to accomplished careers in education and research, government and policy, international organizations, and community and development work.

Please join current faculty, staff, and students in this one-day event to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of our alumni and to reflect upon the current and future state of research and work in comparative and international education. All graduates from Teachers College, Columbia University, who work in international educational development/comparative and international education, and their friends are cordially invited to participate.

The CIE/IED Alumni Day was organized under the impetus of ITS Professor Dr. Gita Steiner-Khamsi. Information regarding Alumni Day registration will be forthcoming shortly. In the meantime, please email Andrew Shiotani at aks7@columbia.edu if you have any questions or wish to participate in this event.

Tenative Program: Morning

9:45 – 10:15

WELCOME ADDRESSES

Professor Thomas James, Provost and Dean of the College

Representative of Alumni Council

Current Faculty/Students in the international and comparative education programs, moderated by Professor George Bond, chair Department of International and Transcultural Studies (ITS):

Representatives of Current Faculty:

  • Reza Arjmand, lecturer
  • Monisha Bajaj, Ed.D., assistant professor
  • Lesley Bartlett, Ph.D., assistant professor
  • Regina Cortina, Ph.D., associate professor
  • Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Ph.D., professor
  • Frances Vavrus, Ph.D., associate professor

Representatives of Student Initiatives:

  • Annie Smiley: African Studies Working Group
  • Rosario Torres-Guevara: Association of Latin American Scholars
  • Cambria Dodd Russell: Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE)
  • Sina Mossayeb: Who’s Who in Comparative & International Education (CIEclopedia)
  • Tavis Jules : Society for International Education

10:15 – 11:00

Moderator: Professor Herve Varenne, Teachers College, ITS Department

Professor Harold Noah, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Teachers College
“Comparative and International Education at Teachers College: From the 1950 until the mid-1990s” (video)

Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi & Andrew Shiotani, Ph.D. student, Teachers College, Columbia University
“The Programs in International Educational Development & Comparative and International Education at TC: From 1995 onwards”

11:00 – 11:30

Coffee Break

11:30 – 1:00

Panel “International and Comparative Education in the World of Agencies”

Moderator: Dr. Maryalice Mazzara, TC Alumni Council & The Levin Institute, SUNY with a tribute to Professor William Sayres.

  1. Dr. Arturo Acosta, USAID/Washington
  2. Dr. Peter Moock, former TC faculty and World Bank
  3. Dr. Alison Price-Rom, AED, Washington, D.C.

1:00 – 2:30

Lunch, offered by the Office of the Provost and Dean of the College
Presentation of the Distinguished Alumni Award by Professor Frances Vavrus, coordinator of the International and Comparative Education Programs

Tentative Program: Afternoon

2:30 – 4:00

Panel “International and Comparative Education in the World of Academe”
Moderator: Dr. Jim Shields, Emeritus Professor CUNY and Director, Japan Initiative with a tribute to Professor Florence McCarthy.

  1. Professor Elizabeth Cassity, University of Sydney/Australia
  2. Professor Max Eckstein, Professor Emeritus, Lehman College and Teachers College
  3. Professor Brahm Fleisch, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
  4. Professor Daphne Hobson, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
  5. Professor Leslie N.K. Lo, Chinese University of Hong Kong
  6. Dr. Beatrice Szekely, Cornell University

4:00 – 4:30

Coffee Break

4:30 – 4:45

A Moment of Silence (moderated by Professor Carol-Anne Spreen)
In memoriam Professor Rolland Paulston (University of Pittsburgh), Professor Hubert O. Quist (University of Cape Coast, Ghana), and other alumni

4:45 – 6:00

Discussion in small groups on the following two topics:

1. What should the international and comparative education programs undertake to strengthen alumni relations?
2. Suggestions on the future directions of the IED/CIE programs

Moderators:

  1. Dr. Alexandria Valerio, World Bank & Professor Jacqueline Mosselson, U-Mass Amherst
  2. Professors Fenot Aklog, TC & Cathryn Magno, Southern Connecticut State University
  3. Professor Carolyn Kissane, NYU and Dr. Mariana Alfonso, Inter-American Development Bank
  4. Professors Jamie Lew, Rutgers University and Diane Gal, Empire State College
  5. Professors Bernhard Streitwieser, Northwestern University & Keiichi Ogawa, Kobe University
  6. Professors Carol-Anne Spreen, University of Virginia & Yume Yamaguchi, Tokyo Institute of Technology
  7. Professors William deJong-Lambert, CUNY & Iveta Silova, Lehigh University
  8. Professors Dana Burde, NYU & Walter Dawson, International Christian University Tokyo
  9. Dr. Judith King-Calnek, United Nations International School

6:15 – 7:00

Brief Inputs from the Groups in the Plenary
Moderator: Professor Ofelia Garcia, Teachers College, ITS Department


A note on the International and Comparative Education Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York:

In 1899 James E. Russell of Teachers College taught the first course on comparative education offered at a university in the United States. In fact, George Z. Bereday contends that Russell’s “Comparative Study of Educational Systems” was by all evidence the first course on comparative education offered anywhere in the world. The history of comparative and international education is thus inextricably linked to the history of Teachers College: so much of the seminal scholarship and groundwork for international collaboration were produced here. Historical accounts abound documenting the leading role played by Teachers College faculty and alumni in influencing international educational reform, stimulating the growth of similar programs at other universities, and attracting international students and promoting international educational exchange. Paul Monroe’s International Institute was a particular catalyst in this development, as were the visible contributions of three generations of the Russell family: James E. Russell (Dean/President of Teachers College for 29 years), William Russell (President of Teachers College until 1954 and Associate Director of Monroe’s International Institute), and James Russell.

While the program in Comparative and International Education (CIE) was from the onset hosted in Teachers College’s Foundations Department (later renamed the Department of Philosophy and the Social Sciences), the program in International Educational Development (IED) arose during the 1950s and 1960s, under the impetus of the younger James Russell and R. Freeman Butts. Initially funded by the National Defense Education Act (1958) and the Ford Foundation, the college-wide program in International Educational Development provided support to students to do projects in Africa and Latin America, and also financed the graduate studies of international students at Teachers College. Under the Russell administrations and under the intellectual leadership of Professors Paul Monroe, George Counts, Isaac L. Kandel, George Z. Bereday, Harold J. Noah, Max Eckstein, R. Freeman Butts and other prominent scholars, the dual international programs flourished and became internationally renowned.

In the 1980s, the programs experienced a decline in institutional support as the College redirected its attention toward more domestic concerns. This prompted Philip Altbach to write in 1991: “Teachers College was a particularly serious loss to the field, as institutional priorities changed and comparative education was virtually eliminated in the 1980s.” The situation, however, changed dramatically in the mid-1990s, when the two programs were brought together under the roof of the newly created Department of International and Transcultural Studies. Since then, the programs have experienced unprecedented growth in the numbers of both faculty and students. The CIE/IED faculty grew from one member (Florence McCarthy) in the early 1990s to the current seven, who are joined by their many colleagues in the other programs of the Department of International and Transcultural Studies in offering relevant courses, advising students, and engaging in collaborative research in international and comparative education. Today, the CIE/IED programs are not only the largest programs of their kind in the United States, but also, taken together, among the largest programs at Teachers College. The faculty of the new millennium considers renaming the two programs International and Comparative Education and thereby leaves behind the unnecessary divisions and distinctions that were made between the twin programs in the past.

Today’s Alumni Day is the first event of its kind for the programs in International and Comparative Education. It is time to establish an Alumni network and together celebrate our glorious past, while looking to our bright future!

- Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Professor, Comparative and International Education