We arrived at work on a recent Monday morning to find the fountain in the pool on Scudder Plaza frozen solid, a sight which sent faculty and staff scrambling for their cameras. I wanted to share it with all of you.

As I write this, November is ending on a chilly note; but it began with the heat and excitement of the election. Scores of WWS students volunteered all over the country and in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on Super Tuesday. On the evening of Election Day, hundreds of students and faculty also gathered in Robertson Hall to hear an expert panel of faculty members analyze election results as they were broadcast (the panel correctly forecast an Obama win); students later repaired to Shultz Dining Room to watch remaining states to be called, and to view President-elect Obama’s victory speech.

This was a historic election for all Americans and for the Woodrow Wilson School. While receiving less media coverage than the presidential candidates, six of our alumni were elected or re-elected to high office. Jeff Merkley MPA ’82 won his bid for a U.S. Senate seat; he’s our first-ever MPA Senator. Jeff’s classmate, Leonard Lance MPA ’82 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, giving us bipartisan coverage in both houses. Jules Kopel-Bailey MPA-URP ’07 won a seat in Oregon’s House; Indiana governor Mitch Daniels ’71 was re-elected; John Sarbanes ’84 was re-elected to the U.S. House; and Tom Nelson MPA ’04 was re-elected to Wisconsin’s State Assembly. I’m also happy to note Tom was just named majority leader of the Assembly!

This crop of alums in office should be a source of special pride for all of us and an inspiration to many of you. Each year I exhort entering students to think about running for office themselves, not just to analyze policy but to legislate it. Barack Obama has opened the door to a much wider range of potential candidates, men and women who may never have imagined a school board member, a state legislator, a member of Congress, or even a president that looks like them. I hope that many of our current students and alumni will follow in his wake.

I am also thrilled to announce WWS Professor of Economics and International Affairs Paul Krugman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in October. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognized Paul for integrating “the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” and for proposing “a new trade model that changed the way economists view the international exchange of goods.”

Paul is the third WWS faculty member to win the Nobel in economics; the late Sir W. Arthur Lewis won in 1979, and emeritus faculty member Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, was a co-recipient of the Prize in 2002. Each provides a superb example of the value of academic research in solving some of the most serious public policy problems of our times.

I hope you enjoy reading about the latest research and other activities at the WWS in the following pages, and have a chance to visit our website,
wws.princeton.edu. And I encourage you to check out the calendar on the inside back cover of this issue for some important upcoming events, including the 2009 Princeton Colloquium on Public and International Affairs on April 17-18. The 2009 Colloquium will focus on the promise —or perils—of the next phase of globalization. It should prove to be a fascinating weekend; I look forward to welcoming many of you back.

Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80, Dean
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
wwsdean@princeton.edu