Institute for International Studies

The Institute for International Studies was established in September 1986. The inspiration for the Institute came from Thomas J. Watson, Jr. ’37, and began with an invitation he issued to President Howard Swearer to come to Moscow where Watson was ambassador to the Soviet Union to discuss Watson’s thoughts on international, particularly Soviet-American, relations and the arms control issue. Watson felt that the greatest hope for the future of international relations was the education of young people. Swearer announced the preliminary plans for the Institute at the 1985 Opening Convocation. Earlier, in 1979, a Council for International Studies had been formed to represent and better coordinate the interests and activities of international studies programs on campus. Its first and only director was Professor Newell M. Stultz of the Political Science Department. The Council was superseded by the Institute. Associated with the Institute are four Brown centers: the Center for Foreign Policy Development, the Alan Shawn Feinstein World Hunger Program, the Population Studies and Training Center, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Development. When the Institute was officially inaugurated on September 25 and 26, 1986, Senator J. William Fulbright made the principal address and received an honorary LL.D. degree, former President Jimmy Carter addressed a public meeting on the Green, and two forums were held with Cyrus Vance, Daniel Yankelovich, and Harrison Salisbury among the participants. The Institute was formally dedicated as the Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Institute for International Studies on May 25, 1991, at which time former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze delivered an addresss on international affairs.