FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 9, 2004

Syracuse University Global Affairs Institute will create an endowment in the name of former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Schumer: Funds will be used to bring more international students, visiting scholars, and post-doctoral students to Syracuse as well as support research

Last year, Schumer secured $5 million for the endowment; today's funds represent another $5 million intended for the Moynihan Institute

US Senator Charles E. Schumer today traveled to Syracuse to present Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor with a check for $5 million to endow a state-of-the-art global affairs institute at SU in the memory of the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Schumer said that the institute will attract the world's best professors to the school and could be a stimulus to help attract people to the region. The center already hosts events and notable speakers to SU and will hit the ground running after they formally introduce the Moynihan Center to the Syracuse community in March.

Schumer, who secured the $5 million for the Maxwell School's Global Affairs Institute, said today that it would carry on the public and intellectual tradition of Senator Moynihan by funding visiting scholars and international leaders, and supporting scholarship in impoverished nations. The Moynihan center will focus on the legacy of Senator Moynihan of anticipating problems, and then working towards innovative responses to them. Specifically, it will bring to Syracuse international students, visiting scholars, post-doctoral students and top-notch research. Last year, Schumer secured half of the $10 million intended for the endowment in the name of the late Senator Moynihan; today's allocation represents the remaining amount headed to the Institute.

"With this endowment, SU is going to be the destination for world class thinkers and professors who work in the field of global affairs,” Schumer said. “That’s great for the university, great for the discipline, and great for the entire region. Exciting new projects are what bring creative, new people to the region.”
The measure also designates the existing Global Affairs Institute (GAI) at the Maxwell School as the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Global Affairs Institute committed to studying diverse cultures, economies, and political systems. The Maxwell School was named as the nation's top school of public affairs by the 2004 U.S. News & World Report's graduate-program rankings. The Maxwell School's Moynihan Center will contain four regional centers within the institute and nine topical working groups.

“The Moynihan Global Affairs Institute will bring experts on the cutting edge in a broad range of areas right here to Syracuse to talk about the international issues of the day,” Schumer said. “That opportunity doesn’t come around every day and it will make Central New York unique. This is just the kind of thing we need to attract young creative professionals.”

Schumer has invited New York Delegation members as well as national officials to the Moynihan Center's official opening in March. The Moynihan family will be in attendance and Tim Russert, former Chief of Staff and currently the host of Meet the Press on NBC will moderate the ceremonies.

The Maxwell School's Global Affairs Institute was established in 1993 to extend, integrate, and focus the Maxwell School's commitment to exploring current international and global concerns. The Institute organizes conferences, credit bearing seminars, and workshops, and provides research fellowships and internship opportunities to graduate students. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a one-time junior faculty member at the Maxwell School from 1959 to 1961, was elected to the United States Senate in 1976 where he served four terms. He retired from the Senate in 2000 renowned as a foreign affairs expert. The Almanac of American Politics once described him as "the nation's best thinker among politicians since Lincoln and its best politician among thinkers since Jefferson."

Schumer was joined at the event by Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Syracuse University; Mitchel Wallerstein, Dean of the Maxwell School; and Peg Hermann, Director of the Moynihan Institute.

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