NPSIA is Canada's oldest school of international affairs, founded during what is commonly considered a golden age of Canadian diplomacy.
[1][2] A 2019 survey of Canadian academics in international affairs confirmed NPSIA as the most-recommended school in Canada for students seeking a career in policy.
[4] Carleton University president Davidson Dunton announced the creation of a graduate school of international affairs on 18 February 1965.
[5] 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.
It was renamed in 1974, while Philip Uren was serving as director, in order to honour its principal financial benefactor, Norman Paterson.
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[8]) and twice as the Under-secretary of External Affairs.
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 conflict.
Though Pearson's teaching style was largely informal, he took his commitment as a professor seriously, making up missed seminars even as his health began to fail.
Pearson once even declined an invitation from U.S. President Richard Nixon to dine at the White House on account of his teaching duties.
The first person to hold the chair position was Arnold Cantwell Smith, a Canadian diplomat who served as Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.
[15] 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.
The annual series brings together leading members of the international affairs community for an assessment of the country's foreign policy.
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.
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 school has also partnered with Carleton's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to offer the Master of Infrastructure Protection and International Security (MIPIS).
[31] The goal of Soirée is to raise awareness of a key global issue while connecting students with important members of the international affairs community in Ottawa.
Past keynote speakers include Michael Ignatieff, former Governor General Michaëlle Jean, the founder of War Child Canada Samantha Nutt and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Izzeldin Abuelaish.