Institute Director
The Search
Brown University seeks a distinguished scholar-practitioner with significant experience in international affairs to serve as Director of the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies. Established in 1990, the Institute's mission is to provide a University-wide focus for research and teaching on international relations, including national security and peace studies broadly defined.
The Director is responsible for shaping and supervising the Institute's ongoing initiatives and research activities, and provides intellectual leadership for its multi-disciplinary community of affiliated faculty members, research scholars, visiting foreign policy practitioners, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates. The Director is also the Institute's principal liaison to the University's academic departments, centers, and programs. In addition, the Director, assisted by an Associate Director and other staff, has overall responsibility for the Institute's day-to-day operations, including budget and finance, fund-raising, and external relations. The Director reports to the University's Provost and is supported by the Institute's distinguished Board of Overseers.
With the support of the University's senior administration and the Overseers, the next Director will play the central role in renewing the Institute's mission to further strengthen Watson's global impact within academe and broader public policy circles. To maintain the Institute as an intellectual center for Brown University, the Director will work with the University's senior academic leadership to define a number of broad research themes that both address significant global issues and align with the interests of the broader faculty.
Brown is seeking candidates who have made significant contributions to the spheres of foreign policy, diplomacy, and international development in academia and/or through leadership in policy-making roles in government, international organizations and nongovernment organizations. Candidates should have a demonstrated record of institutional and intellectual leadership, of creative program building, and of work at the interface between scholarship, policy and practice, as well as the ability to communicate effectively to a wide variety of audiences.
Review of candidates will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled with a preferred appointment date of July 1, 2012.
Brown University's Provost has appointed and charged an eight-member Search Committee, chaired by Professor Susan E. Alcock, consisting of Brown faculty members and Watson Institute Overseers. The executive search firm Isaacson, Miller has been engaged to facilitate this important appointment. Inquiries, nominations, and applications should be addressed in confidence to Isaacson, Miller, as indicated at the end of this document.
Brown University
Founded in 1764, Brown University was the third college established in New England and the seventh in America. Located on College Hill in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, Brown embraces a mission "to serve the community, the nation and the world by discovering, communicating, and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry, and by educating and preparing students to discharge the offices of life with usefulness and reputation." Brown is a member of the Ivy League and the Association of American Universities.
Full-time student enrollment at Brown University consists of approximately 6,000 undergraduates, 2,000 graduate students and 400 medical school students, coming from all 50 U.S. states and over 100 foreign countries. Brown's distinctive undergraduate curriculum, allowing flexibility in the choice of courses and programs, dates back to 1970 and offers more than 70 concentrations leading to either the A.B. or Sc.B. degree. The University offers doctoral-degree programs in 45 fields and master's training in 24 fields through its Graduate School, the Alpert Medical School and the School of Engineering.
Brown has approximately 680 "regular" (tenured and tenure-track) faculty, and a relatively small number of faculty outside the tenure system. Thirty-eight faculty members have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, forty elected to the Association for the Advancement of Science, and eleven are members of the National Academy of Science. In FY 2010-2011 Brown faculty were awarded $167 million in sponsored funding. For over a decade the University has been led by President Ruth J. Simmons who will conclude her presidency in the Spring of 2012. The University's search for her successor is well underway and a new president is expected to be named by that time.
University facilities occupy more than 3.5 million square feet and include world-class libraries and museums such as the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, the Sciences Library, the John Hay Library, the John Carter Brown Library and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. Brown is recognized for its global reach, rich cultural events, numerous campus organizations, active community service and engagement programs, and a beautiful campus set in a rich and historic urban environment on the coast of New England, just three hours from New York and one hour from Boston by train.
The Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies
The Watson Institute is a leading center for research and teaching on important global issues. Its main programs currently focus on (i) global security and (ii) political economy and development. Dedicated in 1990 to honor the late Thomas J. Watson Jr., a graduate of Brown (Class of 1937), chairman of IBM, and U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, the Watson Institute has its roots in the Center for Policy Development, founded by Ambassador Watson in 1981 and incorporated into Brown's Institute for International Studies in 1986.
The Watson Institute is dedicated to innovative and cross-disciplinary research in international affairs at the interface of scholarship, policy, and practice. Although the Institute does not currently grant its own degrees, it serves as the home for undergraduate concentrations (majors) in International Relations and Development Studies. With more than 400 students, International Relations is one of Brown's most popular undergraduate concentrations. A doctoral program in Development Studies is currently supported by a prestigious National Science Foundation IGERT grant. Watson also hosts the Brown International Advanced Research Institutes ("BIARI"), a grant-funded program for building cross-disciplinary research and policy networks with younger scholars from the global South.
With a dedicated endowment currently valued at around $90M to help fund its work, the Watson Institute engages faculty, hosts visiting researchers and practitioners, hires associated staff, and directly supports a range of activities that both draw upon and extend the strengths of the University. The Institute's core faculty consists of scholars jointly appointed with Brown academic departments, including political science, economics, history, anthropology, and sociology. A broader cohort of faculty members, in addition to visiting scholars and experts, are involved in the Institute's programs and activities. Watson staff have considerable strength in event organization, publications, and media production to both facilitate the Institute's activities and disseminate them to worldwide audiences. In addition to endowment income, the Watson Institute regularly secures project and general funding grants and gift income. In 2010, these additional resources totaled just under $2M. Growing external research funding will be an important goal for the next Director.
The Watson Institute is known for questioning settled policy prescriptions and for thinking outside the range of conventional debate about urgent international problems. Working with the Provost and the University's senior academic leadership, the next Director will play a critical role in enhancing existing programs as well as defining and building new research programs and initiatives.
In superintending the academic programs and management of the Institute, the Director is advised and guided by the University's President and Provost, to whom the Director reports, and is supported by Watson's Board of Overseers, an advisory body consisting of scholars and international affairs experts. In the wake of recent internal and external reviews, a process of strengthening and refining the Institute's governance, programs, affiliation structures, and administrative staffing has been underway so that the next Director can focus full attention on identifying new challenges and pursuing new opportunities as described immediately below.
Opportunities and Challenges
Working with Brown University's senior leadership team, the next Director of the Watson Institute will be expected to provide energetic leadership for the Watson community in renewing and reshaping the Institute to better meet its mandate in an everchanging and complex global environment. The Director will also lead efforts to attract outside experts and scholars to participate in Institute programs. A myriad of challenges and opportunities exist which can be framed and ordered in several ways. For this purpose, these challenges and opportunities are framed in relation to three audiences: the Institute itself; the Institute's University home; and the international community of scholars and practitioners for whom the Watson Institute was founded.
Providing Leadership for the Watson Community
The next Director will have an unparalleled opportunity to develop, communicate, and implement a vision for building upon the Institute's past accomplishments and identifying critical and productive new areas of activity in global affairs. Watson is presently home to a varied and impressive range of talent — faculty, staff and students alike. There is enormous potential in this capacity, not least when coupled with existing assets in terms of institutional support, core funding and space. The Director will thus have numerous robust components with which to work to build the Watson's future — leading the Watson community in a process of renewal that sharpens its focus and elevates its visibility throughout the academy and the international community of scholars and practitioners. Part of this effort will include the ongoing development of Watson resources by seeking and securing foundation and government grants as well as fund-raising from individual donors.
Establishing Strong Collaborative Relationships with the Brown Community
The next Director's success will depend to a high degree on successful engagement with the wider University community. Critical for this purpose is effective communication with the University's senior leadership team, including the deans and vice presidents, as well as the President and Provost. The Director must also be an effective partner for academic departments, where most of the Watson-affiliated faculty will hold their primary appointments and from which Watson will recruit additional research and teaching talent. An important source for Watson's growth and renewal will be enlarging and strengthening the Institute's ties with academic departments and engaging a broad range of faculty in Watson initiatives.
Re-engaging Watson in the Global Community
The next Director will also be engaged in refining the Watson mission to reflect changing external global conditions and emerging priorities confronting the international community such as peace, security, development, inequality, governance, environment and more. Part of this challenge is ensuring that Watson's work has continued intellectual and practical relevance. Another aspect of this challenge is ensuring that policy-makers and practitioners see Watson as a valuable resource in finding solutions to these tough issues. Engaging in a consultative process, looking for links and ways to leverage research, and further enhancing the Institute's role as an important participant in these critical conversations are essential aspects of the Director's responsibilities. The next Director's tenure will be defined and measured in large part by the successful fostering of collaboration and engagement between scholars and practitioners in seeking innovative solutions to complex global challenges and by enhancing the Institute's visibility and a broader appreciation of its work and impact on world affairs.
Desired Qualifications and Experience for the Director
For the Director of the Watson Institute, Brown University seeks an exceptional leader who is passionate about the Watson mission, committed to its standards of excellence, and farsighted and optimistic about its future potential. The University is open to considering candidates from a variety of backgrounds, including leadership in the academic, private, professional, nonprofit and government sectors. The position calls for vision, breadth, and good judgment; proven intellectual leadership skills; an enthusiasm for fund raising; demonstrated financial and staff management experience; and a collaborative leadership style that can motivate all participants within a mission-driven culture.
No single candidate will possess all of the ideal qualifications, but the University seeks a Director who has a track record of experience and the personal talent to lead and build an exceptional Institute for International Studies. The following qualifications are of particular interest:
- Commitment to Watson's values and its mission to connect research and practice for addressing important global issues
- Significant, successful experience in international relations, global development, and policy analysis as a scholar, practitioner, or ideally, both
- An accomplished scholar, with Ph.D. or relevant terminal degree, with academic achievement and experience that qualifies for the rank of professor or its equivalent
- Demonstrated success in a senior leadership capacity within the academy, business, the professions, or the public sector.
- A leadership style that is both inclusive and decisive. Demonstrated fund-raising experience with foundations, government agencies, or individual donors.
- Strategic acumen and the ability to use available resources to greatest effect.
- An institution builder with strong relational skills.
- Superior written and oral communication.
- Multi-national and multidisciplinary exposure and experience.
- An affinity and appetite for work in multi-cultural settings.
- Enthusiasm for the opportunity to lead and develop the Institute, including the ability and willingness to be a resident-Director, living in or near Providence
Application Process
Inquiries, nominations and applications should be sent electronically to the following address. Applicants should send a cover letter describing their interest in and qualifications for the position of Director of The Watson Institute, along with their resume, to:
Tim McFeeley and Sean Farrell
Isaacson, Miller
Email: 4430@IMsearch.com
1875 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 710
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 216-2273
Fax: (202) 682-1272
Brown University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any person because of race, color, sex, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
