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IU to dedicate its new Global and International Studies Building

• Sept. 25, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie will preside Oct. 14 over the dedication of the Global and International Studies Building, home to the new School of Global and International Studies and many of the highly ranked language, literature and culture studies programs in IU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

The 165,000-square-foot building provides important new instruction and collaboration space for more than 20 different academic programs in eight departments. Through its design, the building will play a vital role in the development of the School of Global and International Studies and its new programs as well as foster greater interdisciplinary collaboration between academic units that previously were spread across the IU Bloomington campus.

The public is invited to the dedication ceremony, which will begin at 3 p.m. in the auditorium of the building, located at 355 N. Jordan Ave. Other speakers will include Lauren Robel, IU Bloomington provost and executive vice president; Larry Singell, executive dean of the IU College of Arts and Sciences; and Lee A. Feinstein, founding dean of SGIS. Also giving remarks will be Purnima Bose, associate professor of English, and Anna Williams, an IU graduate student and an IU trustee.

In August, school faculty and staff moved into the new building, for which IU is pursuing LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

A signature feature of its three-story enclosed atrium and other building spaces are “the Stones of the World,” which includes stones from 10 countries, connecting Indiana's limestone tradition to the university's global history.

Susan T. Rodriguez of Ennead Architects of New York designed the building, in association with Browning Day Mullins Dierdorf. Ennead (formerly Polshek Partnership) is the firm that designed the Newseum in Washington, D.C., and the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark.

The $53 million building was funded entirely through university sources with half of the funding coming from IU's Big Ten Network revenues, representing the largest-ever commitment from IU Athletics revenue to support the core academic mission of the university.

“This magnificent new building, which will be home to our new School of Global and International Studies, is an essential part of our expanding efforts to educate the next generation of global leaders and scholars, and to play a central role in America’s global engagement in an increasingly complex and interconnected world,” McRobbie said. “All of this and more further cements our standing as one of America’s most internationally focused universities.”

In 2013, Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Dan Coats demonstrated their support when they participated in school’s inauguration.

Home to IU's new School of Global and International Studies

The establishment of SGIS builds on more than a century of tradition and excellence in global affairs at IU, which is making one of the nation's largest investments in global and international studies.

“Global engagement and international perspective are essential elements of IU’s academic mission,” added Robel. “The School of Global and International Studies furthers that critical mission by bringing all of our acclaimed international resources together in a magnificent new home that is designed for collaboration and inspiration.

“I want to thank the School of Global and International Studies faculty for their hard work and vision in coming together to build a school that will certainly shape the international dimension of the IU Bloomington experience for the 21^st century,” Robel said.

The school is composed of four academic departments, seven federally funded Title VI national resource and language centers, three federally funded Language Flagship programs and a total of 21 international institutes and programs. The school is also one of five founding institutions in the Carnegie International Policy Scholars Consortium, which connects basic research in the social sciences and humanities with policy-relevant investigations and analysis.

"With this remarkable new headquarters, we are building on more than 100 years of tradition and excellence in global and international studies in Bloomington," said Feinstein, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Poland from 2009 to 2012.

The school has plans to add 25 new tenure-track faculty to its ranks, more than any other foreign affairs school in the nation.

IU’s history of beckoning scholars and students from around the world dates back more than a century. During World War II, the university provided a safe haven for European intellectuals fleeing Nazi persecution. Following the war, IU President Herman B Wells stepped up the university’s international recruitment efforts and expanded its foreign language and area studies programs.

During the Cold War, IU was one of the only universities in America to offer Russian language studies at a time when such proficiencies were vital to U.S. national security. Additionally, for the past 50 years IU has remained at the forefront of innovation by establishing interdisciplinary resources such as the Center for the Study of Global Change, the East Asian Studies Center and the Islamic Studies Program.

IU alumni have served with distinction to promote our nation's foreign policy and national security. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates graduated from IU in 1966 with a master’s degree and studied in its Russian and East European Institute. Thomas Montgomery, former lieutenant general of the U.S. Army, graduated in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in Slavic languages and literature; and Marie Harf, senior advisor for strategic communications to the secretary of state, graduated in 2003 with honors with a bachelor’s degree in political science; both from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Related Links

• IU School of Global and International Studies
• IU College of Arts and Sciences