Yale Center for International and Area Studies Receives New Name

Yale University President Richard C. Levin today announced that the Yale Center for International and Area Studies is henceforth to be known as the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, in recognition of a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. MacMillan.

The MacMillan Center will remain headquartered in Henry R. Luce Hall. The new address for its web site is www.yale.edu/macmillan.

Whitney MacMillan, a distinguished businessman and philanthropist, is a member of the Yale College class of 1951 and has served on the Yale President’s Council on International Activities. He retired in 1995 as chairman and CEO of Cargill, the world’s largest privately owned company, responsible for more than a quarter of the world’s grain trade. He has served on many boards, including the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Affairs, CARE International and The Mayo Foundation, and was chairman of the EastWest Institute. His wife, Betty, is a community leader in the Minneapolis area. She is president of the WEM Foundation, vice chair of the Smithsonian National Board and serves on the Board of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

“For generations, Yale has been a pioneer in international education, preparing future academic, political, business and nonprofit leaders for service here in the U.S. and abroad,” Levin said. “Through the generosity of Whitney and Betty MacMillan, Yale will continue in this proud tradition, enhancing its rich array of research projects and teaching programs concerned with international affairs and the diversity of cultures and societies around the world.”

Ian Shapiro, the Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center, said, “We are deeply grateful to the MacMillans for their extraordinary gift. Their endowment will enhance the Center’s ability to focus its activities on the international challenges and opportunities of the coming decades.”

The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies draws its intellectual strength from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as well as the professional schools. The Center seeks to make understanding the world outside the borders of the United States, and the role of the United States in the world, an integral part of liberal education and professional training at Yale.

The MacMillan Center offers six undergraduate majors, including four focused on world regions: African, East Asian, Latin American, and Russian and East European Studies.  Two others are focused globally, one on International Studies and the other on Ethnicity, Race and Migration. At the graduate level, the MacMillan Center offers four master’s degree programs. Three are regionally focused (on African, East Asian, and European and Russian Studies) and one is globally focused on International Relations. It also sponsors graduate certificates of concentration through its Councils on African, European, International, Latin American and Iberian, and Middle East Studies. Language training is an integral component of each of the 16 degree and certificate programs.

In addition to academic offerings, the MacMillan Center’s programs include more than 500 lectures, conferences, workshops, roundtables, symposia and film and art events each year.  More than 80 visiting scholars from a range of disciplines and countries join the Yale community each year, thanks to the Center. In addition to conducting research, they collectively teach more than 40 courses annually. The MacMillan Center’s Program in International Educational Resources (PIER) reaches out to the larger public, targeting educators at the primary and secondary (K-12) as well as college levels with professional and curricular development programs and services, in addition to teaching materials and electronic resources.