
Director Danny Hoffman outside Thomson Hall, Aug. 2022. Photo by Dennis Wise
As we launch into the autumn quarter of a new academic year, I have found myself asking a basic question: What should a School of International Studies be? That may seem a strange query to pose from Thomson Hall. The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies is, after all, an internationally recognized leader in our field. Our record of research and education stretches back more than a century. Our faculty, staff and students helped to define modern area studies and interdisciplinary global studies. If ever there was an academic unit that should know its place on campus and in the world, the Jackson School is it.
And, of course, in one sense, we do. Last year we initiated a strategic planning process, beginning with an exercise in articulating our vision of the School. The result will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in a Jackson School classroom, spoken with a Jackson School faculty member or student, or attended one of our public events: “Henry M. Jackson School students, faculty, staff and community partners engage the world through problem driven inquiry. We employ diverse scholarly fields and research methods across world regions to meet the planet’s greatest challenges.” We activated that vision in the past year with a series of public lectures and new courses on the expanding war in the Middle East; we celebrated Professor Emerita Marie Anchordoguy’s commendation from the Japanese Foreign Ministry for her contributions to U.S.-Japan relations; Jackson School Professor Tony Lucero explored the complexities of border relations through co-publishing the extraordinary memoir of Tohono O’odham soldier-turned-seminarian-turned-human rights activist Michael Steven Wilson; and Jackson School student Safaa Turner-Rahman combined the personal and the world-historical through her exploration of Bangla language and the Cold War era in South Asia on a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship via our South Asia Center. These are just a small sampling of the many ways that our community enacts our enduring, century plus vision of what a School of International Studies can, and should, be.
And yet any institution that stakes its identity on supporting students, scholars and public audiences to “meet the planet’s greatest challenges” is committing to constant, critical questioning and self-examination. What should a School of International Studies be when students studying Indigenous languages in the Arctic and energy politics in the Middle East both cite the same global phenomenon – climate change – as the issue of paramount importance? What should a School of International Studies be when public discourse around the world is increasingly nationalistic, nativist, and xenophobic? What should a School of International Studies be when a new technology, artificial intelligence, has disrupted classrooms, economies, political discourse, and the foundations of knowledge itself? To remain committed to a vision of issue driven inquiry means constantly evaluating what great challenges we face. But it also implies a constant process of asking why we do that work, who does it, and where we go next. I am very proud of the way that the Jackson School community answered those questions over the past year, some of which you will see in this latest quarterly newsletter.
We know the year ahead will be no less challenging. Every member of the Jackson School’s faculty, staff, student body (current or former) will participate both in strengthening the long-established tradition of what the Jackson School does, and will pose anew the question of what the Jackson School can and should be. We will demonstrate that on Oct. 17 when a panel of our faculty experts will explore the U.S. elections from a global perspective, a conversation we will hold in person and also live-stream. Next year, when I sit down to write this message, we will be no closer to answering the question of what a School of International Studies should be, because the world will be a different place. But we will have new achievements to report, new accomplishments in a proud Jackson School legacy of asking what a School of International Studies should be in order to meet the world’s challenges.
I hope to see you on campus this year whether in our classes, public events or other outreach activities. Thank you for your interest and continuing support.
Danny Hoffman
Stanley D. Golub Endowed Chair in International Studies
Director, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington