Creation of the school Carleton University president
Davidson Dunton announced the creation of a
graduate school of international affairs on 18 February 1965. The school was established, in part, due to a $400,000 grant from the Hon.
Norman Paterson. He was a Canadian businessman and
Senator who made his fortune in the shipping and grain industries, and he was also a member of Carleton's Board of Governors. He had previously donated $500,000 to Carleton in 1957. At the time of its creation, the new graduate school was called the School of International Affairs. It was renamed in 1974, while Philip Uren was serving as director, in order to honour its principal financial benefactor, Norman Paterson. Classes began at the School of International Affairs in September 1966. The first director of the school was
Norman Robertson, a distinguished public servant and diplomat. Prior to his appointment at the school, Robertson had served variously as
Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to Cabinet,
Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, as well as ambassador to the United States in 1957-58 (when Philip Uren also served there as first secretary appointed by Lester Pearson) and twice as the Under-secretary of External Affairs. Robertson did not enjoy teaching and was reportedly not an effective teacher. Enrolment at the school in the early years numbered over 30.
Lester Pearson The school acquired its most prominent faculty member in 1968 with the appointment of former
Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson as a lecturer. The newly opened school was a natural fit for Pearson, who had won the
Nobel Peace Prize in
1957 for trying (without significant impact) to end the
Suez Crisis. Senator Paterson later contended that the creation of the school and thoughts about how Pearson would spend his retirement were "intimately bound together in [the Senator's] mind." Pearson had turned down multiple teaching offers from schools in the United States before beginning his appointment at the School on 1 July 1968, only months after stepping down as Prime Minister. Pearson also used his time at Carleton to work on his memoirs, until he died in 1972. Pearson is buried in the
same cemetery as his friend, and the school's first director, Norman Robertson. Following his death, friends of Pearson raised funds to establish the Lester B. Pearson Chair of International Affairs at the school. The first person to hold the chair position was
Arnold Cantwell Smith, a Canadian diplomat who served as
Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.
1970s and 1980s NPSIA made the news in 1978, when John Sigler, who died Professor Emeritus in 2021 at the age of 89, was Director, because of a brief controversy after Philip Uren, who served three times as Director of NPSIA and was a Carleton professor of geography, accepted a paid trip from the government of
South Africa to speak and conduct research. This was controversial given the government of South Africa's
Apartheid policy. The NPSIA Faculty Council was concerned that Uren had represented himself as speaking on behalf of Carleton University, and passed a resolution censuring Uren for damaging NPSIA's reputation. The incident was complicated by the fact that Uren also served as the director of the Paterson Centre, Carleton's administrative centre for international exchanges. His dual role as professor and administrator sparked a debate over academic freedom, and how that freedom should extent to faculty serving in administrative roles. Uren eventually resigned as director of the Paterson Centre, though he remained a geography professor at Carleton. He died in 1979 at the age of 56 – a fellowship was established in his name. NPSIA first published its "Canada Among Nations" series in 1984. The annual series brings together leading members of the international affairs community for an assessment of the country's foreign policy. The books are used in university courses on foreign policy and international relations, and "have become a major publication of record on Canada's policies and actions in the world." The volumes, which include topics such as arms control, climate change, and international political economy, have often been edited by prominent NPSIA faculty members, including by Maureen Appel Molot, Brian Tomlin,
Fen Osler Hampson, Norman Hillmer, Jean Daudelin and Dane Rowlands.
21st century In 2008, former Canadian diplomat
William Barton donated $3 million to the school to establish the William and Jeanie Barton Chair in International Affairs. The chair honours Barton, who served as
President of the UN Security Council during Canada's lead in the 1970s, and his wife Jeanie. The first and current chair holder is
Trevor Findlay. NPSIA moved from its traditional home on Carleton's campus in Dunton Tower to the new River Building in 2012. The school's new space includes a new resource centre named in honour of William and Jeanie Barton. The resource centre contains computers, printers, workrooms, unique reference material including past theses by NPSIAns, and a balcony on the top floor of the River Building. The resource centre is accessible only to NPSIA students, staff, and faculty. Dr. Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy is the current director of NPSIA, having succeeded Dr. Dane Rowlands in 2017. Prior to Dr. Rowlands' tenure the position was held by Dr. Fen Hampson; Dr. Hampson's term as director ended in 2012. In spring 2024, NPSIA was labeled as an "
undesirable organization" in Russia, along with the University of Toronto’s
Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. On March 22, 2024, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federation included Dr. Yiagadeesen (Teddy) Samy on the list of Canadian citizens that were denied entry to the Russian Federation. ==Graduate programs==