Dear students and members of the Munk School community,

I’m writing to welcome you back to our newly amalgamated Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy for the 2018-2019 academic year.  As ever, our students have engaged in an impressive range of activities over the summer.  Our Master of Global Affairs (MGA) and Master of Public Policy (MPP) students completed their policy internships in organizations across multiple sectors. They worked as policy analysts in the public sector, summer associates in management consulting, and research analysts in the not-for-profit sector in locations across Ontario.

MPP interns working in the Ontario Public Sector had the unusual opportunity to experience the writ period for the provincial elections and work through a change in government, while our MGA students pursued internships in 25 countries (and 28 cities) around the world. Some students travelled to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to work at the Secretariat for Coordinating Reconciliation Mechanisms. Others worked in three different Latin American offices of Action Against Hunger, in Lima, Guatemala City, and Bogota, developing corporate social responsibility engagement strategies for Canadian companies in those regions, and two of our students interned at UN-OCHA at the UN headquarters in NYC, exploring how private and military cyber-technologies affect and can be implemented in humanitarian disaster-relief efforts.

For my part, I am just back from five weeks’ research in Berlin. In conversations with contacts there, it was clear that the Munk School’s reputation abroad is strong – and growing.

I am looking forward to an engaging year ahead. We continue to deepen existing international partnerships and develop new ones in Europe and Asia creating new opportunities for internships, exchange, and employment.

We are holding a series of Munk School Distinguished Lectures – with reserved places for our students – featuring great thinkers such as Timothy Garton Ash, Ron Inglehart, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca, Bent Flyvbjerg, James Bessen, Jessica Trounstine, Catherine McKenna, and Toomas Hendrik Ilves. I encourage you all to take advantage of these unique opportunities and to get involved.

The Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy is renowned for its education, research and public engagement that tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time. As we begin this exciting academic year together, I look forward to working with all members of our remarkable community to advance the School’s mission. Good luck in the year ahead and I look forward to engaging with you in the months to come.

Warm regards,

Randall Hansen
Interim Director
Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

September 6, 2018