Economics of Education Policy
Pre-req: SIPA IA6501 - Quant II
or equivalent quantitative methods course. This course applies empirical economic tools to the study of education policy, with a focus on both K-12 and higher education systems. Topics include class size, peer effects, teacher quality, school accountability, school choice, vouchers, and student incentives. In the context of higher education, the course covers investment in human capital, returns to college, and issues of access and equity across income, gender, and race. Students will engage with contemporary research and develop practical skills through empirical exercises using real data. Emphasis is placed on understanding identification strategies and interpreting results from recent studies.
- Department: Data Science for Policy
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Instructor:
Cristian Pop-Eleches
h-index: 23 Info - 3 points
Cyberspace in Strategy and Grand Strateg
Cyberspace & Grand Strate
This course examines the role of cyberspace in national strategy and grand strategy, with a primary focus on the United States and select comparative cases. As the United States shifts from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency toward renewed great power competition, questions about the utility of force, alliance structures, economic statecraft, and international institutions are increasingly framed by strategic thinking. Although cyberspace influences nearly all instruments of national power, its role in debates about grand strategy remains underexplored. This course addresses that gap by evaluating how traditional concepts of strategy and grand strategy apply in the digital domain. Students will assess how cyberspace shapes the formulation and execution of strategy through military operations, diplomacy, intelligence, and economic tools.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Erica D Lonergan
Info - 3 points
Education in Humanitarian Emergencies
Education in Emergencies
This course examines the role of education as a critical component of humanitarian response. Students will explore the legal frameworks, minimum standards, coordination mechanisms, and funding models that underpin education in emergencies. The course analyzes how conflict and disasters disrupt learning, and how education contributes to protection, psychosocial wellbeing, and resilience. Special attention is given to issues of gender, disability inclusion, and emerging challenges such as climate change. Through readings, discussion, and research, students will gain practical and theoretical insights into designing effective education interventions in crisis-affected settings.
- Department: Development and Governance
- 3 points
The Tenets and Dilemmas of Humanitarian
Humanitarian Action Dilem
This course introduces students to the foundations, actors, and debates that shape modern humanitarian action. Students will examine the history and evolution of humanitarianism, the development of international legal and normative frameworks, and the operational principles guiding humanitarian response. Through case studies and thematic discussions, the course explores the challenges of delivering aid in complex emergencies, including issues of coordination, protection, access, politicization, and accountability.
Attention will be given to ethical dilemmas, the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, the rise of localization, and calls for decolonizing aid. Students will engage critically with core questions: How does humanitarian action intersect with power, politics, and security? Are established norms fit for purpose in today’s crises? The course combines lectures, debates, and independent research to prepare students to assess and navigate the evolving landscape of humanitarian response.
- Department: Development and Governance
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Instructor:
Laura Perez
Info - 3 points
Theory and Practice of Financial Regulat
Financial Regulation Theo
This course examines the theory, design, and implementation of financial regulation. Students will explore the rationale for regulatory oversight in financial systems, focusing on the challenges of liquidity and solvency risk, information asymmetries, market failures, and systemic vulnerabilities. The course considers both regulation, meaning rules grounded in law, and supervision, referring to oversight practices that enforce those rules.
Through case studies and recent financial failures such as FTX and Silicon Valley Bank, students will consider how regulatory frameworks have evolved over time, largely in response to crises and scandals. The course emphasizes the complexity of balancing regulatory objectives, managing trade-offs between credibility and flexibility, and understanding how regulatory design affects the behavior and incentives of financial market participants.
Topics include capital and liquidity requirements, stress testing, internal governance, the role of market discipline, regulatory responses across financial subsectors, the growth of shadow banking, and developments in macroprudential supervision. Students will also examine the limitations and unintended consequences of regulatory interventions.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
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Instructor:
Christine Cumming
Info - 3 points
Managing Humanitarian Emergencies
According to the 2025 Global Humanitarian Overview, humanitarian partners are appealing for over US$47 billion to assist nearly 190 million people facing life-threatening and urgent needs across 72 countries. These staggering numbers are fueled by drivers such as conflicts and political instability, climate change, disease outbreaks, poverty, and natural hazards. Together, these drivers have deepened pre-existing vulnerabilities, resulting in unprecedented need. They have also prompted humanitarians to address the accountability challenges and inequities deeply seated within the aid system.
Humanitarian agencies strive to meet rising needs, but the task that confronts them is immense.
Funding
for humanitarian responses is not keeping pace with requirements: although donors contribute more, the amounts are not commensurate with needs. Beyond financing, donor policies and politics challenge agencies' ability to deliver. The safety and security of aid workers is increasingly under threat.
This course focuses on the management of humanitarian operations and intends to provide students with the opportunity to explore critical issues in the humanitarian system. It helps students understand debates in the humanitarian system, develop a framework of analysis they can use in headquarters and the field, and acquire a toolkit to help them succeed as aid workers. This practical course will interest those wishing to work with an aid agency, directly or indirectly with disaster-affected populations, or those who want to better understand the system and the opportunities and challenges that humanitarians face.
- Department: Development and Governance
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Instructor:
Pierrette Quintiliani
Info - 3 points
International Finance & Monetary Theory
Intl Finance & Monetary T
This is a theory and applications course in international macroeconomics and finance. It provides students with the basic tools to analyze real-life macroeconomic, policy, and financial market situations. The class is suitable for those interested in working at domestic or international policy institutions, in diplomatic service, the financial sector, or the media. Lectures are fairly rigorous, though if the student has some first-year economics, knows basic algebra and graphs, they will handle the material fairly easily. While theory is central, policy and market relevance is emphasized through: i) discussions on topical issues; ii) study of key historical and current episodes to illustrate ideas; iii) relevant pieces of policy/media/finance sector analysis. In terms of topics, part one will develop analytic frameworks to understand exchange rates in terms of short- and long-term determinants. Part two explores the balance of payments and the interaction between the macroeconomic policy, the exchange rate, and macroeconomic outcomes. Then part three will cover various advanced topics such as the choice of exchange rate regime, the euro, currency crashes, and default.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
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Instructor:
Daniel J Waldman
Info - 3 points
Comparative Social Welfare Policy
This course explores welfare systems from a comparative perspective and analyzes the political, economic, socio-cultural, and historical factors that shape and sustain them in various parts of the world. It pays particular attention to the development of key national social welfare policies, such as social security, health care, unemployment insurance, social assistance, public employment and training, and emerging best practices and challenges in these areas. The course also analyzes pressing global/regional trends (e.g., greying of societies, labor market stratification, social innovation, and working poverty).
- Department: Urban and Social Policy
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Instructor:
Yumiko T Shimabukuro
Info - 3 points
Collaborative Social Justice and Health
Social Justice & Health
This intensive, two-day course introduces students to the collaborative social justice model, with a focus on Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) as a policy tool to advance racial and health equity. MLPs bring together professionals across disciplines, particularly law and medicine, to jointly address the structural causes of poor health, including poverty, discrimination, and housing insecurity. The course explores how these partnerships operate, their policy reform potential, and the risks and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration. Through guest speakers and hands-on group work, students will examine how to design and advocate for collaborative social justice initiatives that protect marginalized communities and promote systemic change. Students will gain practical tools for developing cross-sector partnerships and translating them into effective policy interventions.
- Department: Urban and Social Policy
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Instructor:
Rose C Goldberg
Info - 1 points
Global Monetary Policy in the 21st Centu
This seminar examines the evolution of global monetary policy from 2000 to the present, focusing on the actions and strategies of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of England. Students study the major economic disruptions of the era, including the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent surge and subsequent decline in global inflation. The course analyzes how central banks operated under constraints such as the effective lower bound and explores the adoption of unconventional monetary tools. Students will assess the effectiveness, repercussions, and future trajectory of monetary policy in advanced economies.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
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Instructor:
Richard H Clarida
CULPA: 2 Info - 3 points
Conflict Resolution
This course introduces the study and practice of international conflict resolution, providing students with a broad understanding of the subject and a framework for approaching more specific strands of study offered by CICR. Can a war be stopped before it starts? Is it realistic to talk about ‘managing’ a war and mitigating its consequences? What eventually brings adversaries to the negotiating table? How do mediation efforts unfold and how are the key issues resolved? Why do peace processes and peace agreements so often fail to bring durable peace? Students will address these and other fundamental questions in order to develop an understanding of international conflict resolution.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
- 3 points
Mediation in a World in Flux
This course explores the challenges and opportunities in international peacemaking, with a particular focus on mediation as a tool for advancing political solutions to violent conflict. Complementing other CICR courses, it offers students the opportunity to deepen their understanding of how various mediators—including the United Nations, multilateral institutions, states, and non-governmental organizations—are responding to shifting dynamics in global conflict and politics.
The course considers key questions: What factors hinder current conflict resolution efforts? How have mediators adapted to changes in geopolitics, the fragmentation of non-state armed groups, and a crowded mediation landscape? How should they continue to adapt, especially amid declining resources for peace and humanitarian efforts and growing resistance to established norms?
Students will also examine how mediators can engage conflict parties on emerging issues, including the effects of the climate crisis and digital technologies on conflict dynamics and peace processes.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Teresa Whitfield
Info - 1.5 points
International Finance, Liability Flows a
Intl Finance & Stability
This course explores the benefits and risks of international financial flows, with a focus on the economic stability of emerging markets and non-major developed economies. Students will examine the drivers and implications of cross-border liability flows, consider the perspectives of local and global policymakers, and analyze how capital movements shape national debt dynamics and financial resilience. Drawing on theory, current research, and real-world cases, the course covers topics such as exchange rate regimes, uncovered interest parity, financial crises, capital flow management, and the effects of monetary tightening in major economies. Readings include academic work and institutional analyses from the IMF, BIS, and World Bank.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
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Instructor:
Sigridur Benediktsdottir
Info - 3 points
Struggles for Sustainability: Food, Farm
How has the quest to produce enough food shaped societies, economies, and the environment in the United States and beyond? This course examines the powerful historical forces that have driven transformations in food production and policy over the past century, and how those forces continue to shape debates around sustainability, food security, and development today.
Students will explore the evolution of agricultural science and technology, the impact of government programs such as subsidies and rationing, and the ways ideas born in the U.S. have been adopted, adapted, or resisted globally. From the rise of large-scale production to the emergence of movements for organic and regenerative practices, we will trace how food systems reflect shifting values, power dynamics, and visions of progress.
This seminar invites students interested in sustainability and social change to critically engage with the past to better understand the urgent questions of the future.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
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Instructor:
Sara Tjossem
Info - 3 points
Central Bank Crisis Management
The extraordinary policy responses of global central banks to the 2023 banking turmoil, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2007-2009 financial crisis have fostered debate about both the appropriateness and the effectiveness of central bank actions. This course will discuss the theory and practice of “unconventional” monetary policy tools – i.e., those used to address financial crises, widespread deflation, and deep recessions or depressions. Examples in the course will be drawn from a broad array of crises, countries, and central banks in both the developed and emerging world over many decades.
The bulk of the course will focus on how central banks adapt their policy rules and tools in response to extraordinary financial or economic turmoil. Different types of monetary policy tools will be discussed and analyzed, with particular focus on the design and the effectiveness of various crisis policy tools. Central to understanding policy effectiveness will be consideration of how financial and macroeconomic conditions impact central bank policy design, and in turn, how financial markets and the macroeconomy respond to extraordinary policies.
Examples of the use of crisis management tools – both more and less successful – across jurisdictions will be discussed in the latter half of the course. The course finishes with discussions of several important and timely dilemmas: Where is the “line” between crisis monetary policies and traditional fiscal policy actions? Why was the (inflation) impact of COVID-19 policy responses so different from previous episodes of instability? How do central bank “undo” their crisis management policies and return to “normal”? What difficulties do central banks face in handling economic side effects and the political consequences of extraordinary policies?
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
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Instructor:
Patricia C Mosser
Info - 3 points
Applied Peacebuilding and Conflict Resol
Peacebuilding Fieldwork
This course prepares students to engage in peacebuilding practice by developing fieldwork-related competencies rooted in critical reflection, professional strategy, and ethical engagement. Students examine foundational values, frameworks, and dilemmas in the peacebuilding field, while cultivating skills in project design, monitoring and evaluation (MEAL), communication, collaboration, and cultural awareness.
Structured as the first part of a spring-summer-fall sequence, the course introduces peacebuilding theory and practice through seminar-style discussions and applied assignments. Students collaborate with vetted field-based partner institutions to design projects aligned with real-world needs. These projects are implemented through optional summer internships, followed by a fall debrief session with the incoming cohort.
Coursework emphasizes partnership with local actors, conflict sensitivity, reflective practice, and an openness to critique and adaptation. Students are expected to grapple with the complexity of field conditions and to develop strategies for self-care, ethical engagement, and navigating uncertainty. Assignments include reflective journals, a midterm conflict analysis and thematic research paper, and a final project design paper.
Please note: All fieldwork and associated travel are voluntary and student-funded, though external funding opportunities may be available.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Zachary B Metz
Info - 3 points
Fighting Corruption: Concepts and Strate
This course examines the causes, dynamics, and consequences of corruption across societies, with emphasis on developing countries. Students will learn to identify different forms of corruption and explore legal, institutional, and policy-based strategies to prevent and address it. Through scenario assessments, simulations, and applied exercises, the course emphasizes practical tools for designing anti-corruption responses. Topics include measurement and transparency, enforcement mechanisms, multilateral initiatives, the role of civil society and media, and emerging challenges such as strategic corruption and financial technologies.
- Department: Development and Governance
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Instructor:
Richard Nephew
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
Applied Geopolitics: Risk Analysis
This course introduces students to the theory and practice of political risk analysis, focusing on how geopolitical dynamics shape markets, investment strategies, and global governance. Students will examine frameworks such as the G-Zero world, J-Curve, and state capitalism, and explore how they apply to real-world risks across countries and sectors. Taught by leading experts in the field, the course emphasizes interdisciplinary tools and methodologies for identifying, assessing, and managing political risk—including scenario planning, risk indices, and game-theory modeling. Through a combination of case studies, interactive practicums, and group presentations, students will apply these tools to current global challenges such as political transitions, social unrest, climate change, technological disruption, and great power conflict. The course prepares students to think strategically and forecast risk in public, private, and multilateral settings.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
- 1.5 points
Sustainable Finance II: System-level Inv
Sust Fin II: System-Level
Today’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, social inequities, and financial instability, are complex, global, and systemic. This course explores how investors can respond through system-level investing, an emerging approach that considers the deep interconnections among financial markets, the real economy, and long-term environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes.
Building on traditional and sustainable finance principles, system-level investing expands beyond portfolio-level risk and return analysis to address the broader systems that support market performance. Students will explore how investors can influence and manage systemic risks to improve investment outcomes and support societal resilience. Topics include foundational finance theory, tools for system-level investing, real-world case studies, and evolving practices across asset classes.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
- 3 points
History of Sustainable Investing
This course will track the history of sustainable investing from the 1970s, in order to better understand the field, what it’s been doing, and where it stands now. We will start with the emergence of sustainable investment in the 1970s as it congealed strands of community organizing, consumer society, institutional activism from community organizing, labor activism, and institutional investor assertion into a new set of specific institutions and practices; continue through the shareholder activism and professionalization of the field in the 1980s and 1990; turn to the substantial growth and mainstreaming of the field from 2000s; and finally bring our history up to the present moment of policymaking, backlash, and self-doubt in the field. We will ask questions like: what did practitioners and advocates hope to achieve by building the field of sustainable investment? What kinds of work, in what kinds of institutions, made up the field? What are the political and ideological contexts in which the field emerged, and how have they changed over time? Why did something seen as so marginal back become so much more central to how we talk about finance and financial policy now? What does this history tells us about the (potential) utility of sustainable investment?
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
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Instructor:
David C Wood
Info - 1.5 points
Impact Investing II: Blended Finance
Impact Investing II: Blended Finance'' equips students with a detailed understanding of the tools, strategies and innovative approaches being utilized by investors seeking both financial and impact returns, via blended finance transactions. Students in this course will study cases, dig into transactions and be prepared to be a professional contributor to a transaction at a future employer. Moreover, the course provides students with a further understanding of opportunities that blended transactions can provide impact investors as they aim to unlock capital markets' support to mitigate climate change, reverse biodiversity loss, address social inequality, reduce poverty, and generate other system-level challenges.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
- 3 points
Climate Finance, Policy, and Just Transi
Clim Fin, Policy, & Just
The field of responsible investment has grown rapidly over the last twenty years, with the climate crisis serving as the paradigmatic ESG issue for investors. In the private sector, investors pledge to decarbonize their portfolios, ask for carbon reporting to manage that task, join together to engage corporations on their transition plans. As activity has grown, questions about the effectiveness and limitations of climate finance approaches to the climate crisis have grown along with them. A narrow focus on decarbonization has begun to give way to broader considerations of the transition and the risks and opportunities it poses for affected workers and communities, on the belief that social cohesion is a precondition for successful transition. Private sector initiatives have been complemented with public policy and public investment efforts to shape environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Climate finance is in a moment of reflection, change, and doubt.
This course will survey and analyze the ways that public and private investment are being or could be directed in support of a Just Transition (i.e., a low-carbon transition that does not worsen social inequalities), and various ways to think about how effective climate finance can be. We will look at investors’ approaches to the decarbonization of the economy in political and social context, asking: how do or should investors integrate concerns for workers, communities, and environment into climate finance? what kinds of public policies are needed to ensure that investment points towards a Just Transition? The result, we hope, will lead both to a better understanding of the roles public and private investment in a Just Transition, climate policy, and an expanded critical capacity to analyze how well it’s working.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
-
Instructor:
David C Wood
Info - 3 points
ESG and Corporate Political Strategy
ESG and Corporate Political Strategy examines how organizations align environmental, social, and governance (ESG) priorities with corporate political strategies to shape policy, manage risk, and advance system-level change. As public expectations of corporate responsibility grow, firms must navigate both market and non-market arenas to sustain value, engage with stakeholders, and influence the rules by which they operate.
This course equips students with practical tools and analytical frameworks to understand and implement integrated strategies that align ESG goals with legislative, regulatory, and political engagement. Case studies and applied exercises explore how companies influence policy, respond to regulatory shifts, and act as stewards of systemic transformation. Topics include corporate lobbying, public positioning on social issues, regulatory influence, and the strategic use of litigation and partnerships.
Ideal for students pursuing careers in business, policy, nonprofit, or advocacy sectors, this course complements
Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment
and is open to graduate students across SIPA, Columbia Business School, the Climate School, and other Columbia schools.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
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Instructor:
Dylan Minor
Info - 1.5 points
Quantitative Valuation of the Environmen
Quant Valuation of Enviro
The Quantitative Valuation of the Environment course will explore theory and methods of economically valuing environmental benefits and disbenefits, and how they can be applied in decision-making processes to improve stated outcomes. Specifically, it examines model specification for stated preference valuation, generating awareness of the theoretical and empirical questions being investigated in the area, generating awareness of environmental and resource issues currently being debated, and practical issues such as how these welfare economics measures can be used in efficiency measures such as benefit cost analysis.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
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Instructor:
Lorie Srivastava
Info - 3 points
Campaigning for Change - Media, Mobiliza
Strategic Campaigning & R
This course introduces the history, strategy, and practice of human rights campaigning, with a focus on media-driven advocacy. Students will examine the foundations of campaigning journalism, explore modern digital mobilization tactics, and learn to develop and execute impactful advocacy campaigns. The course emphasizes the intersection of strategic communications, digital tools, and policy advocacy, and provides hands-on experience in campaign design, messaging, and evaluation.
Students will develop an original advocacy campaign on a contemporary human rights issue using the 2026 FIFA World Cup as a global platform. Course assignments include writing advocacy letters and op-eds, designing media strategies, and producing a final campaign pitch deck. Case studies will include successful campaigns addressing labor rights, gender equity, and corporate responsibility in sport.
The course is suitable for students interested in human rights, journalism, digital strategy, and public advocacy. Sessions include skill-building workshops, guest speakers, and applied project work in collaboration with Human Rights Watch and other advocacy professionals.
- Department: Human Rights, Gender, and Equity
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Instructor:
Mary Worden
Info - 3 points
Social Impact: Business, Society, and th
Social Impact:Bus,Soc,Nat
The Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment course explores the relationship between corporations, society, and the natural environment. Specifically, it examines the ways in which governments, (for-profit and non-profit) organizations, and investors (fail to) have positive impact and manage issues where the pursuit of private goals is deemed inconsistent with the public interest.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
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Instructor:
Caroline Flammer
Info - 3 points
Sustainability Reporting
The Sustainability Reporting course explores the ever-evolving global Sustainability and ESG reporting environment and the standards and frameworks that are being used by companies to report on their sustainability related performance. Environmental, Social, and Governance Reporting (“ESG”) also referred to in parts as Corporate Responsibility /Accountability Reporting. The course explores the market drivers that generate the demand for sustainability reporting by companies, key areas of focus for investors and other capital providers, regulatory activities and the intersection of sustainability reporting with traditional corporate financial reporting.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
-
Instructor:
Avner Bukspan
Info - 3 points
SIRI Practicum
The Sustainable Investing Research Consulting Project provides an action-based learning experience to students interested in sustainable investing, covering both sustainable investing in the financial sector (impact investing and sustainable finance) and the real economy (for-profit and non-profit organizations). For example, students will learn about the opportunities, challenges, and limitations faced by sustainable and impact investors to finance a more sustainable world. Moreover, they will learn how (for-profit and non-profit) organizations develop innovative products and services that help mitigate grand challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, poverty, etc., and enable them to grow their business and sustain their competitive advantage over time.
Throughout the semester, students will work on an actual sustainable investing research consulting project for a client from across the world. They will (e-)meet with the client on a regular basis, discuss their progress, obtain feedback, and present their recommendation to the client. Furthermore, students will conduct research and interviews to learn about the broader business environment and institutional context (including cultural, political, economic, and social factors) to better understand the opportunities and challenges the clients face.
This course is ideal for students interested in pursuing careers in sustainable finance, impact investing, ESG, corporate sustainability, social entrepreneurship, and sustainable development.
The Sustainable Investing Research Consulting course offers consulting projects from around the world, covering a broad range of topics in sustainable investing. Clients include start-ups and established firms, non-profit and for-profit organizations, and clients from the finance and investing world. For more information on client projects and the student experiences, please see the SIRI website:
https://siri.sipa.columbia.edu/news
Registration in this course is instructor-managed. Students must join the course waitlist in Vergil during their registration appointment and submit the following application to be considered for enrollment:
https://forms.gle/XQNhfryMhGUszkZB6
.
- Department: Climate, Energy, & Environment
-
Instructor:
Courtney Sara L Minard
Info - 3 points
Leadership in Times of Disruption
Leadership during Disrupt
This intensive, seven-week course prepares students to lead and manage effectively through periods of significant change. Combining research-backed frameworks with reflective practice, students explore the intersection of vision, strategy, culture, and people management. The course draws on examples from the social impact sector and high-growth startups to examine how leaders drive transformation, build resilient organizations, and inspire performance. Students will apply concepts through the design of a hypothetical organization, culminating in the development of a strategic plan, organizational structure, and leadership toolkit. Ideal for students preparing to lead teams or initiatives across sectors.
Leading Global Innovation
This course prepares students to lead innovation in the global social impact sector. It introduces methods such as human-centered design, futures thinking, and systems innovation, with applied focus on the energy and health sectors. Students will explore how to design, launch, and manage innovation strategies within NGOs, INGOs, and private sector organizations, while critically examining equity, ethics, and power dynamics in innovation ecosystems. Through case studies, guest speakers, and hands-on assignments, students develop practical skills and a personal innovation toolkit to support their careers as practitioners, strategists, and changemakers in complex, cross-sector environments.
- Department: Tech Policy and Innovation
-
Instructor:
Chandani Punia
Info - 3 points
User Experience (UX) in Digital Developm
UX in Digital Development
This course introduces students to human-centered approaches for designing and evaluating digital technologies in development contexts. Moving beyond technological determinism and the notion of digital “silver bullets,” the course emphasizes understanding users, their communities, and local systems to create more inclusive, sustainable solutions. Through frameworks in Human-Centered Design (HCD), systems thinking, and participatory methods, students will engage with core issues of digital development practice, including technology adoption, literacy, and equity.
Students will learn to critically assess and design digital tools such as mobile applications, platforms, and services, while considering constraints and opportunities in low-resource settings. The course combines interactive sessions in UX and UI design with guest lectures from practitioners and researchers. Coursework includes facilitation and participation, authoring a reflective Medium article on HCD in development, and a culminating group design project. No prerequisites are required beyond a constructive and critical mindset.
- Department: Development and Governance
- 3 points
Economic Measurement of Discrimination
Econ Measures-Discriminat
Discrimination is the differential treatment of people based on identity or perceived identity (race, gender, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, age, religion, disability, immigration status, etc.). Such behavior violates some legal, social, and moral norms and has a negative impact on those discriminated against.
For these and other reasons, it is important to be able to formally identify discrimination from data. But how do we know that A’s treatment of B is because of B’s identity as opposed to some other characteristic of B or A that we may not even have a variable for?
In this class, we will explore economists’ methodologies for answering this question. We will survey the economic literature on discrimination against a variety of types of people in a variety of markets and across countries. Students are encouraged to explore discrimination in contexts not covered in the reading in their final projects.
- Department: International Finance & Economic Policy
-
Instructor:
Ebonya L Washington
Info - 3 points
Middle East Conflicts and Global Securit
ME Conflicts & Global Sec
This course analyzes the impact of domestic and regional conflicts in the Middle East on global security. Key concepts include: regime change, revolution, civil war, conflict management, security sector reform, arms transfers, nuclear proliferation, counterterrorism, and international criminal justice. These conceptual tools are used for comparative analysis of three sub-regional conflict zones: Saudi Arabia / Iran / Iraq, Egypt / Syria / Lebanon, and Palestine / Jordan / Israel. Each of these regions has galvanized substantial global engagement.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Naomi Weinberger
CULPA: 11 Info - 3 points
Gender, Politics, and Development
Gender, Politics, & Devel
Gender equality, and the empowerment of women and girls, are now widely accepted as development goals in their own right and as essential to inclusive and sustainable development. Yet despite progress in many areas, gender gaps and discrimination persist. This course asks: How did gender equality move from the periphery to the center of development discourse, and what difference has this shift made? Is gender equality a human right, an essential dimension of human development, or “smart economics”? What are the implications of a gender equality agenda for men and boys, and for broader understandings of gender identities and sexualities? What policies, strategies, and practices have been effective—or ineffective—in narrowing gender gaps and improving outcomes for both women and men in different development settings? What are possible responses to the “gender backlash” emerging in some countries and institutions?
In this course, we approach gender, politics, and development through theory, policy, and practice. We explore multiple constructions of gender in development discourse; the intersection of gender with race, ethnicity, caste, class, sexual orientation, disability, and other social categories; and the influence of dominant economic and political trends. We examine how gender norms shape the approaches of governments, development agencies, civil society organizations, and the private sector.
A critical gender lens is applied to a wide range of development sectors and issues, including economic development, political participation, education and health, environment and climate change, and conflict and displacement. The course also considers current debates and approaches related to gender mainstreaming and gender metrics in development practice. Students engage with the material through class discussions, exercises, case studies, and the development of a gender-related project proposal.
- Department: Development and Governance
- 3 points
Global Constitutionalism
This course compares a range of proposals that have been advanced to promote a constitutional world order. It begins with traditional conceptions of the balance of power among independent “Westphalian” states, then explores arrangements designed to produce alternative forms of constituted international and world order. These include liberal and authoritarian internationalism, collective security through the League Covenant and the United Nations Charter, John Rawls’s
Law of Peoples
, and various other contemporary models of international law, global governance networks, and global democratization.
In addition to assessing the particular merits and limitations of these visions of world order, the course examines the underlying principles of international politics, ethics, and constitutional design that characterize efforts to establish rules for the globe.
- Department: Development and Governance
-
Instructor:
Michael Doyle
Info - 3 points
China's Foreign Relations
This course examines the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to the present, analyzing the political, strategic, and economic drivers of Beijing’s engagement with the world. Topics include China’s relations with the United States, Russia, Asia, and the Global South; key historical turning points such as the Cold War, reform era, and post-Tiananmen period; and contemporary challenges including cross-Strait relations, great power competition, and global governance. Emphasis is placed on the causes and consequences of China’s external behavior and how domestic politics, nationalism, and leadership shape policy. Graduate students participate in additional precepts and complete analytic memos designed to build policy-relevant skills.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Thomas J Christensen
CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info - 3 points
China's Foreign Relations
This course examines the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China from 1949 to the present, analyzing the political, strategic, and economic drivers of Beijing’s engagement with the world. Topics include China’s relations with the United States, Russia, Asia, and the Global South; key historical turning points such as the Cold War, reform era, and post-Tiananmen period; and contemporary challenges including cross-Strait relations, great power competition, and global governance. Emphasis is placed on the causes and consequences of China’s external behavior and how domestic politics, nationalism, and leadership shape policy. Graduate students participate in additional precepts and complete analytic memos designed to build policy-relevant skills.
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
-
Instructor:
Thomas J Christensen
CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info - 3 points
The U.S. Role in World Affairs, II
This course is the second half of the year-long International Fellows Program (IFP) seminar examining the United States’ evolving role in global affairs. Building on themes from the fall, the spring semester focuses on the challenges confronting a new U.S. presidential administration and the strategic decisions that will shape American leadership in a contested international environment. Through a combination of seminar discussions, case studies, guest speakers, and two regional crisis simulations, students will examine U.S. policy responses to geopolitical competition, regional instability, and transnational threats. Enrollment is limited to students in the International Fellows Program (IFP).
- Department: International Security & Diplomacy
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Instructor:
Victoria Nuland
Info - 3 points
GRAD STUDENT & FACULTY COLLOQ
FEMINIST PEDAGOGY
This is a course is oriented to graduate students who are thinking about issues in teaching in the near and distant future and want to explore forms of pedagogy. The course will ask what it means to teach “as a feminist” and will explore how to create a classroom receptive to feminist and queer methodologies and theories regardless of course theme/content. Topics include: participatory pedagogy, the role of political engagement, the gender dynamics of the classroom, modes of critical thought and disagreement. Discussions will be oriented around student interest. The course will meet 4-5 times per SEMESTER (dates TBD) and the final assignment is to develop and workshop a syllabus for a new gender/sexuality course in your field. Because this course is required for graduate students choosing to fulfill Option 2 for the Graduate Certificate in Feminist Studies at IRWGS, priority will be given to graduate students completing the certificate.
- Department: Women's and Gender Studies
- T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Julia Bryan-Wilson
Wikipedia Info - 1 points
CRITICAL TRANSLATION THEORY
- Department: Comparative Literature and Society, Institute for
- W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
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Instructor:
Peter T Connor
CULPA: 13
Info
- 4 points
Oratory, History, and Power: Cicero s
A close analysis of Cicero’s
Brutus
in its many contexts: as a response to Caesar’s dictatorship; as an account of oratory and rhetorical practices in Rome; and as the earliest surviving account of Roman literary history.
- Department: Classics
- W 10:10 a.m.-noon
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Instructor:
James E Zetzel
CULPA: 8
Info
- 3 points
Dissertation Research
Full time research for doctoral students.
- Department: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
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Instructor:
Richard Slusarczyk
Info - 12 points
CURRENT ISSUES IN COPYRIGHT
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Jane C Ginsburg
Wikipedia Info - 2 points
S. Rethinking Globalization
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Charles Sabel
Wikipedia h-index: 77 Info - 3 points
SEM-NEGOTIATION WORKSHOP
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Mavis K Fowler
Info -
Instructor:
Jay A Hewlin
Info -
Instructor:
Katerina M Yiannibas
Info - 3 points
SEM-NEGOTIATION WORKSHOP
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Katerina M Yiannibas
Info -
Instructor:
Edward C Frischling
Info - 3 points
SEM-NEGOTIATION WORKSHOP
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
- Department: Law
- 3 points
SEM-NEGOTIATION WORKSHOP
This is a Law School course. For more detailed course information, please go to the Law School Curriculum Guide at: http://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/search
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Avery W Katz
Info - 3 points
S ADV NEGIATION WORKSHOP
course decription
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
David S Ross
Info - 3 points
Intro to Biology Course (T3ST)
Test Course for Vergil Launch Demonstration
- Department: OFFC OF THE REGISTRAR
- 3 points
S ADV INTER COMM ARBITRATION
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Robert H Smit
CULPA: 13 Info - 2 points
S CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Zohar Goshen
h-index: 12 Info - 3 points
Diagnosis and Management of Acute & Crit
DX & MGMT ACUT CRIT ILLNE
This is the last of three Diagnosis and Management courses designed to educate students on the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and evaluation of common acute and critical illnesses via a systems-based approach. Pathophysiologic alterations, assessment, diagnostic findings, and multimodal management will be discussed. The course will examine social determinants of health and health disparities that may impact patients and family outcomes. Focus will be on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive healthcare management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical illnesses using didactic lectures, case studies and simulation.
Financial Management
The course introduces students to budgeting and financial control as a means of influencing the behavior of organizations. Concepts include the budget process and taxation, intergovernmental revenues, municipal finance, bonds, control of expenditures, purchasing, debt management, productivity enhancement, and nonprofit finance. Students learn about the fiscal problems that managers typically face, and how they seek to address them. Students also gain experience in conducting financial analysis and facility with spreadsheet programs. Case materials utilize earth systems issues and other policy issues. A computer lab section is an essential aspect of the course, as it teaches students to use spreadsheet software to perform practical exercises in budgeting and financial management.
- Department: MPA-ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE POL
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Instructor:
Rebecca E Koike
Info - 3 points
Non-Profit Law, Taxation and Policy
NON-PROFIT LAW TAXATION P
See CLS Curriculum Guide
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
David M Schizer
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
INTEGRATIVE NUTRITION & PATHOPHYSIOLOGY
Prerequisite: registration as a nutrition degree candidate or instructors permission. Discussion of pathology, symptomatology, and clinical manifestations with case presentations when possible. Laboratory assessments of each condition. Principles of nutritional intervention for therapy and prevention.
- Department: Human Nutrition, Institute of
- 3 points
TOPICS IN GEOMETRIC ANALYSIS
Topics of linear and non-linear partial differential equations of second order, with particular emphasis to Elliptic and Parabolic equations and modern approaches.
- Department: Mathematics
- MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
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Instructor:
Panagiota Daskalopoulos
CULPA: 19
Wikipedia
Info
- 4.5 points
BIOSTAT IN NUTR THRU CASE STDY
- Department: Human Nutrition, Institute of
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Instructor:
Rajasekhar Ramakrishnan
Info - 3 points
Microeconomics and Policy Analysis II
Microecon & Policy Analys
This two-semester course demonstrates that it is both possible and useful to think about public policy rigorously: to examine underlying assumptions; to understand how formal models operate; to question vagueness and clichés; and to make sophisticated ethical arguments. An important goal of the class is to have students work in groups as they apply microeconomic concepts to current public policy issues having to do with urban environmental and earth systems. The course includes problem sets designed to teach core concepts and their application. In the spring semester, the emphasis is on the application of concepts to analyze contemporary policy problems. Some time is also devoted to international trade and regulation, and industrial organization issues. Students not only learn microeconomic concepts, but also how to explain them to decision-makers. Student groups take on specific earth system policy issues, analyze options through the use of microeconomic concepts, and then make oral presentations to the class.
- Department: MPA-ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE POL
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Instructor:
Eren Selcuk
h-index: 4 Info - 3 points
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF NURSE ANESTHE
PRIN & PRACTICE OF NURS A
This is the first of four didactic courses that discuss techniques for anesthetic administration and related technologies in the context of various surgical and diagnostic interventions in diverse anesthetizing locations. Focus is assessment and management of monitoring modalities and other techniques in the perioperative environment. Cultural humility will be incorporated into care plans to develop anesthetic management individualized to patient identities and cultures while including an emphasis on social and cultural health disparities.
- Department: Nursing
- W 9 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
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Instructor:
Maribeth L Massie
Info - 3 points
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF NURSE ANESTHE
PRIN & PRAC NURS ANES LAB
This lab is the first of three lab/simulation courses. Focus is placed upon essential technology and procedures utilized in the management of the patient during the preoperative, intraoperative, and the postoperative period. The course activities promote a synthesis of lecture content obtained in Principles & Practice of Nurse Anesthesia I course. Lab/simulation experiences will develop the psychomotor skills and critical thinking inherent to the practice of nurse anesthesia. Specific procedural skills must be safely demonstrated. Cultural humility will be incorporated into care plans and simulations to develop anesthetic management individualized to patient identities and cultures while including an emphasis on social and cultural health disparities.
- Department: Nursing
- 2 points
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF NURSE ANESTHE
PRIN & PRAC NURS ANES IV
This is the fourth didactic course that discusses the various methods and techniques of anesthesia administration with an emphasis on the physiological basis for practice. Alterations in homeostatic mechanisms and advanced anesthetic management throughout the perioperative continuum of patients undergoing advanced, complex surgeries and procedures are emphasized. Cultural humility will be incorporated into care plans to develop anesthetic management individualized to patient identities and cultures while including an emphasis on social and cultural health disparities.
- Department: Nursing
- M 9 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
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Instructor:
Antoinette T Padula
Info - 3 points
Financial Development
Open to all SIPA with pre-req or concurrent-req: Macroeconomics.
This course aims to provide a well-rounded understanding of financial development over time and across countries, with an emphasis on public policy. Topics include a review of the foundations and processes of financial development; the roles of markets, instruments, and institutions; issues related to systemic financial stability; links to financial repression and globalization; and the developmental and oversight roles of the state. Financial activities arise in response to the interplay of a few easily identifiable frictions and related market failures, operating within an evolving institutional environment and uncertain macroeconomic context. Finance has both a bright side (welfare-enhancing financial development) and a dark side (financial instability and potential excess finance).
This conceptualization of financial development is supported by a review of the fundamental foundations of finance through simple modeling exercises, statistical illustrations of financial trends, and references to specific country experiences, many drawn from the work of IMF or World Bank financial sector-related missions.
Recitation slots will be used for guest lectures on frontier issues or for instructor-led discussions. These sessions may cover some of the analytical underpinnings for subsequent lectures, explore the policy implications of recent topics, or actively debate themes of special interest to students.
- Department: MPA IN ECON POLICY MANAGEMENT
- 3 points
S. Academic Scholars
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Charles Sabel
Wikipedia h-index: 77 Info - 1 points
Diagnosis and Management of the Complex
DIAG & MGMNT COMPLEX PATI
This is the third course of three consecutive courses focusing on a systems and developmental approach in primary care with emphasis on risk assessment, comorbidities and acuity to determine the most appropriate level of care. This course will focus on the differential diagnosis and comprehensive management of commonly encountered acute and chronic physical and mental health illnesses as they affect individuals across the lifespan.
- Department: Nursing
- W 9 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
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Instructor:
Marlene E Mc Hugh
h-index: 11 Info - 3 points
Clinical Seminar in Women's Health
CLIN SEMIN WOMEN'S HEALTH
Clinical seminar in Women's Health is designed to provide the Women's Health Subspecialty student with an opportunity to expand on clinical practicum experiences via case presentation and faculty led group clinical discussion. Each student will present a case chosen from the women's health practicum experience. The presenting student will lead a class discussion based on their case facilitated by the course instructor. Some seminar sessions will include a didactic component presented by the course instructor to further elaborate on clinical issues presented in the cases over the course of the semester.
- Department: Nursing
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Instructor:
Adena Bargad
Info - 1 points
S. Law & Finance of the Art Market
S LAW & FIN OF THE ART MA
See CLS curriculum guide for description
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Cathy M Kaplan
Info - 2 points
Foundations of VC (3 Credits)
Please note that this section of Foundations of VC is application-based only and only open to students enrolled in the Venture Fellows Program. Students interested in taking this course should consider B8439 Foundations of Venture Capital: https://courses.business.columbia.edu/B8439
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Foundations of Venture Capital is very experiential. Learnings will be applied to companies that are currently fundraising and you will assess each company as if you were considering investing. There will be 2-3 guest lecturers (in addition to the startup pitches) from experts in the ecosystem so students get a varied perspective. Real company info will be shared in this class. As a result, class slides will be handed out in class but not shared electronically and class sessions will not be recorded.
- Department: Finance
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Instructor:
Angela W Lee
Info - 3 points
S ADVANCED CLIMATE CHANGE LAW
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
Michael Gerrard
CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info - 2 points
Breastfeeding, Postpartum, and Newborn C
BREASTFEEDING/POSTPART/NE
This course provides the graduate nurse-midwifery student with a theoretical and practical knowledge of the neonate, breastfeeding, and the postpartum period with an emphasis on the first six weeks. Normal physiology and family centered management skills are emphasized. Students are encouraged to provide care that recognizes and respects the cultural dynamics of the family. Pathophysiology is also covered to familiarize the nurse-midwife with various interventions when deviations from the normal are encountered.
- Department: Nursing
- W 10 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
- 3 points
S NONPROFIT LAW AND POLICY
- Department: Law
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Instructor:
David Pozen
Wikipedia Info - 3 points
DNP Seminar in Pediatric Primary Care II
DNP SEM PED PRIM CARE III
This is the final seminar in the sequence for the DNP student. This seminar will continue to foster the student’s clinical decision-making process while incorporating evidence-based practice for the provision of primary care to pediatric patients across settings. Utilizing the clinical encounter format and CUSON DNP Competencies in Comprehensive Care as a framework, the student will analyze clinical decisions, appraise and apply evidence for best practice.
- Department: Nursing
- T 8 a.m.-9:50 a.m.
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Instructor:
Deanna M Schneider
Info - 2 points
Neonatal and Pediatric Advanced Pharmaco
NEO & PEDS ADV PHARM
The goals of this course are to provide students with a knowledge and understanding of clinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic principles with application to neonatal and pediatric patients. The prevention and treatment of various disease states affecting neonatal and pediatric patients will be explored. This course will review pharmacotherapeutics including appropriate use, therapeutic medication monitoring, adverse medication reactions, precautions and contraindications, and medication safety as it affects the neonatal and pediatric population.
- Department: Nursing
- M 3:30 p.m.-6:20 p.m.
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Instructor:
Susan Villegas
Info - 3 points