Welcome from the Director, Anand Yang

The Jackson School is unique. There is no institution like it anywhere in the world. It combines the social sciences, humanities, and professional fields in order to forge disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the understanding of our increasingly interconnected globe. And it does so as well by generating expertise in specific regions of the world and/or in comparative and transnational studies.

The Jackson School's commitment to regional, cross-cultural, and comparative studies extends well beyond the boundaries of its many formal academic programs. The School has an unusually high number of federally funded centers: eight Title VI National Resource Centers and one Undergraduate Center. These centers are devoted to outreach and public education activities for teachers, business people, and the general community. Each year the School sponsors dozens of conferences, colloquia, and seminars featuring the works of scholars, business people, and diplomats from around the world.

The faculty of the Jackson School is remarkably diverse. They are drawn from departments throughout the College of Arts & Sciences and from other units across the University, such as the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, the School of Law, and the School of Business Administration. The curricula of our undergraduate and graduate programs represent the strengths of these units and also include extensive study of foreign languages.

My colleagues and I are interested in exploring the historical development, current dynamics and possible future direction of our global community. We approach these concerns from our respective disciplinary specializations and from our regional and international expertise as well. Our aim is to strive to educate our students so that they can live and work as truly global citizens in the twenty-first century.

Admission to the Jackson School's undergraduate major and graduate programs is highly competitive. For our students, the School provides an exciting arena in which to grow intellectually and to lay the foundation for challenging careers in the emergent world civilization of the twenty-first century.