SPIA’s New Pillars Focus on Policymakers, International Views

Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) launched a new set of “strategic pillars” emphasizing its student and faculty diversity, alumni network, and real-world impact. SPIA surveyed more than 550 people inside the school and 265 alumni as part of the research process to come up with the new direction.

The pillars, launched in October, emphasize expanding internationalization and engaging policymakers. The plan underscores the importance of using SPIA’s new center in Washington, D.C., as well as connections in New Jersey, to train students and bring student expertise to practitioners. The plan also places an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), through programming, speaker events, and degree requirements.

But graduate alumni are split on whether these approaches are what the school needs.

Amaney Jamal was named dean of SPIA in June 2021, and her background in the politics department as an academic — rather than in SPIA as a practitioner — has been the basis of concern for some alumni.

John Yochelson *67, who joined other graduate alumni from the late 1960s in voicing concerns to Jamal and President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, including in a letter to PAW in December, said he thinks that today’s school focuses too much on the academic aspects of policy rather than on the practical.

Recent alumni told PAW that they appreciated the practical training but wished that they had had more of it in specific areas.

“They are still lacking faculty that are experts and practitioners … on issues. They could promote more workshops on what’s going on to the south of the border,” said Juan Pablo Alvarez Enriquez *22, who now works as a migration specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Jamal told PAW that SPIA’s academic focus is “a foundation” for practical training. “So the practical work can be more effective, efficient, and elicit the desired outcomes.”

The rebrand also emphasizes the importance of the “international” part of SPIA. According to Jamal, SPIA has long had a reputation of being a school focused primarily on the United States.

“To have knowledge of the world is to have knowledge of the United States, and to have knowledge of the United States is to have knowledge of the world,” Jamal said.

SPIA has focused in recent years on recruiting more international students, with that population making up 49% of admitted students in the master’s of public policy (MPP) program between 2022 and 2024. MPP candidates are mid-career professionals who attend the school for one year, while the master’s in public affairs (MPA) is a two-year program.

“I think … even if you’re working at the state and local level in the United States, there are global implications to whatever your portfolio might be,” said assistant dean for global outreach Steven Petric *17. 
“So the perspectives that people can offer from different countries, different contexts, different cities, different backgrounds, can actually enrich the training that we’re providing at this school.”

Alvarez Enriquez, an international alumnus from Mexico, said he believes international students enrich the experience of the school. “I think more international experience will complement and broaden the scope of the school,” he said.

Katherine Phan *23, who came to SPIA after spending time as an activist, told PAW that she finds SPIA’s introduction and expansion of DEI requirements “borne from a legacy of student protest and activism,” extremely important. Following student activism in 2020, SPIA now requires all MPA students to complete a course in Race, Power, and Inequality.

“As the current U.S. administration actively dismantles critical DEI programs and initiatives to uphold its agenda of white, cisheteronormative, Western supremacy, there is no time more critical than now for the school to push its students to analyze their policymaking through the lens of international justice, critical race theory, and more,” she told PAW in an email. “To do any less would be to admit that the school’s vision ‘in the nation’s service’ is only to uphold the status quo.”

Another facet of those DEI initiatives is creating space for “open and constructive dialogue,” such as through the Dean’s Leadership Series, a program that has faced criticism.

Jamal argued that bringing in speakers — even provocative ones — is, in itself, part of the school’s training.

“Our students will find themselves in corridors, in meetings, in hallways where they’re going to have to process and deal with differing and opposing viewpoints, and sometimes ... unpopular viewpoints, or viewpoints that don’t normatively fit into what our students are comfortable with,” she said.

“But at the end of the day, our students are going to have to sometimes engage viewpoints that make them very uncomfortable, and so we want to equip our students with those tools to be able to have those conversations … .”

Dave McNally *68 said the school should “get back to its founding principles” of “bolstering the public services in this country.”

Recent alumni, however, said SPIA’s dedication to service is part of what drew them to the school in the first place. For Sean Massa *24, the emphasis on public service made SPIA his top choice.

“It seems like that’s a core value that really runs through all aspects of the school, and it really shows,” he said, “just really dedicated people who want to give their lives to public service in different fields, in different ways.”