by Alexa Schwerha
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will teach a course in foreign policy at Columbia University during the fall 2023 semester, the university announced Wednesday.
Clinton will teach “Inside the Situation Room” alongside School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, according to the announcement. The course will give students an inside look into how decisions are made in an international relations scale and use case studies and examine decisions including the search for Osama bin Laden, the “red line” in Syria and negotiations with Iran.
“Through this course, students will think carefully and analytically about how leaders and other actors view the world, how they arrive at their decisions, and how various social, political, and psychological factors shape the policies they devise to promote their interests abroad,” the course description reads.
SIPA announced the course in a video skit that showed numerous students excited to hear that Clinton will be “running again.” Clinton then runs into the classroom and is greeted by Yarhi-Milo, saying she “got here early for the new class we’re doing together on foreign policy decision-making.”
“When it comes to crisis situations, you’ve always got to be prepared,” Clinton said, responding to Yarhi-Milo’s comment that classes don’t start until September.
Yarhi-Milo will teach students about the theories that go into decision-making and strategy while Clinton will relay what it was like to be inside the situation room, according to the video.
Clinton caught heat from Republicans during her time as Secretary of State for supporting intervention in Libya that resulted in the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gaddafi. She has also been criticized for the attack on an American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 that killed four Americans, and it later became known that Clinton used a private email server to conduct state business.
Clinton joined the SIPA faculty in February as a Professor of Practice and a Presidential Fellow at Columbia Worlds Project. She will work with senior administrators “on a variety of major initiatives, especially those focusing on global politics and policy and on supporting female leaders in those arenas.” She received an honorary degree from Columbia in 2022.
The course goal is to “give students a holistic understanding of the many facets of foreign policy decision-making.”
“As future participants in the policy process, this course will provide vital background that they can draw on should they, too, find themselves facing high-pressure decisions with implications for national security and global stability,” the description reads. “It will also enhance their ability to counsel intelligence officers, military leaders, advisors, or other government officials by improving their ability to anticipate other actors’ actions, perceptions, and motivations.”
The course is available to Columbia SIPA students and undergraduate students from Columbia College, Barnard College and the Columbia University School of General Studies.
Columbia University and Yarhi-Milo did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Alexa Schwerha is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Hillary Clinton” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 3.0. Background Photo “Columbia University” by Scarlet Sappho. CC BY-SA 2.0.
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