Princeton hires another top scholar from Harvard.
By: Jeff Milgram
First, Princeton University wooed and won religion professor Anthony Appiah away from Harvard in January. Then, Princeton lured another religion professor, Cornel West, away from Harvard in April.
And now, Princeton has appointed yet another Harvard faculty member, Anne-Marie Slaughter, a law professor and scholar of international affairs, as dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, effective Sept. 1.
She also will hold faculty positions in the school and in the Department of Politics.
Princeton Provost Amy Gutmann scoffed at the notion that Old Nassau was raiding Harvard Yard.
"She’s a dynamic scholar of international law," Dr. Gutmann said Tuesday.
Dr. Slaughter, who graduated from Princeton in 1980, is the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign and Comparative Law at Harvard University and a professor in Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Her teaching and research have focused on global governance, the politics of international tribunals and interdisciplinary analyses of international legal issues.
"As a leader and scholar, Anne-Marie Slaughter is well-prepared to build upon the Woodrow Wilson School’s strengths in scholarship, in teaching and in preparing students for careers in public service," said university President Shirley M. Tilghman. "Along with great vitality and enthusiasm, she brings a deep background in international affairs, a strong commitment to other areas of public policy and an interdisciplinary approach to her work."
A highly regarded expert on international law, Dr. Slaughter serves as president of the American Society of International Law and is a frequent presenter at scholarly conferences and debates. She was a leading participant in two Woodrow Wilson School conferences on universal jurisdiction, which last year developed principles to guide the prosecution of war crimes and other serious crimes under international law when there are no jurisdictional links to the victims or perpetrators. The principles, which have sparked discussion around the world, were designed to help bring war criminals to justice.
"I chose to come to Princeton as an undergraduate because of the Woodrow Wilson School. It is a great honor and a tremendous opportunity to come back as dean," Dr. Slaughter said. "I hope to help rebuild Princeton’s traditional strengths in international affairs and to ensure that the school plays a central role in addressing a new generation of economic, political, scientific and technological challenges facing the country and the world."
Dr. Slaughter is director of graduate and international legal studies at the Harvard Law School and founder and faculty director of the Harvard Colloquium on International Affairs.
She has taught courses in international law and relations, foreign affairs and the Constitution, and perspectives on American law, among other topics. From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Slaughter was a professor of law and international relations at the University of Chicago Law School.
Dr. Slaughter graduated magna cum laude from Princeton, where she received the Daniel M. Sachs Memorial Scholarship, one of Princeton’s top honors, which provides for two years of study at Oxford University.
She received her master’s and doctoral degrees in international relations from Oxford in 1982 and 1992, respectively, and her law degree from Harvard Law School, cum laude, in 1985.
Dr. Slaughter has written or co-edited four books and more than 50 articles for scholarly and legal journals. In addition to her scholarly work, she has been a frequent commentator in the media on such topics as international tribunals, terrorism and international law including issues related to the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Among other honors, Dr. Slaughter gave a set of Millennial Lectures at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2000 and won the Francis Deak Prize awarded by the American Journal of International Law in 1990 and 1994. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of the World Peace Foundation and a member of the editorial or advisory boards of six academic and legal journals.
Dr. Slaughter is married to Andrew Moravcsik, a professor of government and director of the European Union Center at Harvard. They have two sons.
The Woodrow Wilson School was founded at Princeton in 1930 as a small, interdisciplinary program at the undergraduate level. A graduate professional program was added in 1948.
That program was greatly strengthened in the 1960s through a gift from Charles and Marie Robertson, and the school has become a major international center of advanced training and research in public affairs. Its graduates include leaders in domestic and international government positions as well as leaders of private, non-profit and nongovernmental organizations.
Since February, Associate Dean James Trussell has served as acting dean. Dean Michael Rothschild left the post to return to full-time research and teaching in January.