The Josef Korbel School of International Studies has offered degree programs in international affairs since its founding in 1964 as the Graduate School of International Studies by the scholar-diplomat Josef Korbel. Korbel is the father of Madeleine Albright, who was the first woman appointed to serve as the U.S. Secretary of State. In its earlier incarnation, the Department of International Relations at the University of Denver had a national reputation thanks to Ben M. Cherrington, a scholar, U.S. State Department diplomat and dynamic educator dedicated to providing his students with a global perspective.

The Graduate School of International Studies was renamed Josef Korbel School of International Studies in 2008. The new name recognizes that Korbel's life and work serve as the intellectual foundation of the school and that his spirit continues to inspire students and faculty.

A history of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies

The Josef Korbel School of International Studies has offered degree programs in international affairs since its founding in 1964 as the Graduate School of International Studies. The school was renamed May 28, 2008, to honor its founder and first dean, Josef Korbel.

The Cherrington years

In its earliest incarnation, the Department of International Relations at the University of Denver had a national reputation thanks to the leadership of Ben Mark Cherrington, a dynamic educator dedicated to providing students a global perspective of the issues of the day. The department's academic programs also had the moral and financial support of the Social Science Foundation, established in 1926 by Denver investment banker and philanthropist James Causey with the support of then-DU Chancellor Heber Harper. Today, the foundation's board manages a multi-million dollar trust, the proceeds of which are dedicated to promoting the study and application of international relations at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

As a teacher and director of the University's Foundation for the Advancement of Social Sciences, Cherrington formed life-long relationships with such thinkers as Louis Brandeis, Mohandas Gandhi and Ramsay MacDonald in an effort to seek solutions to the international problems of his day. Thanks to Cherrington's drive and enthusiasm for organizing conferences, seminars and lectures dedicated to international affairs, Denver became a temporary home to politicians, diplomats, academics and business leaders from around the world.

While professor and chairman of the Department of International Relations, Cherrington was also at the forefront of efforts to create a formal institution for U.S. public diplomacy, implementing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neighbor Policy," which was designed to reverse decades of U.S. paternalism toward Latin America. In 1938, Cherrington was handpicked by the State Department to lead its new Division of Cultural Relations and tasked with carrying out "the exchange of professors, teachers, and students . . . cooperation in the field of music, art, literature . . . international radio broadcasts . . . generally, the dissemination abroad of the representative intellectual and cultural work of the U.S." Thus a foundation was laid for what are today the school's hallmark strengths: a global perspective, academic integrity, emphasis on the relevance of theory to skills and support of initiatives and activities that support a peaceful and prosperous world. Cherrington served as chancellor of the University of Denver from 1943 to 1946 and was later an author of the United Nations Charter.

Josef Korbel

The Graduate School of International Studies became a reality largely due to the vision and efforts of Josef Korbel, who is now widely known as the father of Madeleine Albright, the 64th Secretary of State of the United States and the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. A diplomat in Czechoslovakia, Korbel's Jewish heritage forced him to flee after the Nazi invasion in 1939. He served as an advisor to Edvard Benes, the exiled Czech president in London, until the Third Reich was defeated. He then returned to Czechoslovakia to serve as the country's ambassador to Yugoslavia but was forced to flee again during the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948. After learning he had been tried and sentenced to death in absentia, Korbel was granted political asylum in the United States and was hired in 1949 to teach international politics at the University of Denver.

During his career in Denver as a scholar and teacher, Korbel decided to try to establish a professional school that would prepare talented and idealistic people for distinguished careers in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Finally in 1964, with the support of Ben Cherrington, Korbel founded the Graduate School of International Studies and became its first dean. To house the school, the 30,300-square-foot Ben M. Cherrington Hall was built in 1965. After Korbel's death, the University of Denver established the Josef Korbel Humanitarian Award in 2000.

Ascending reputation

The strategic initiatives implemented over the past five decades have helped establish the Josef Korbel School globally as a premier educational institution. A 2012 survey conducted by the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project, a part of The Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations at the College of William & Mary, ranked our master degrees #11 in the world for graduate programs in international affairs. The survey results confirm that the school has a faculty and innovative programs that are recognized by leading U.S. academics as excellent.

The recent prominence of graduates on the world stage has also contributed to the school's ascending reputation. Those graduates include former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; U.S. Army Gen. George Casey, 38th chief of staff of the U.S. Army and former commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq; Heraldo Munoz, Chile's ambassador to the United Nations; and former Iranian ambassador to the U.N., Javad Zarif.

The Josef Korbel legacy

The Graduate School of International Studies was renamed Josef Korbel School of International Studies May 28, 2008, thanks to the family of Josef Korbel. The new name recognizes that Korbel's life and work serves as the intellectual foundation of the school and that his spirit continues to inspire students and faculty. Though less well known than some other philosopher-academics of his generation, Korbel "arguably had a more enduring and practical impact on the history of American policy," according to National Public Radio correspondent Guy Raz. By the time Korbel died in 1977, he had left behind "a legacy that spawned two generations of top diplomats and leaders," including his daughter, Madeleine, and star pupil at the University of Denver, Condoleezza Rice.

"Josef Korbel opened a world to me that I would never have known," former Secretary of State Rice said in a speech in 2007. Indeed, in the post-Cold War world, Korbel helped pioneer the field of international studies. He was revered as a teacher-mentor by those who knew him and widely regarded in his day as a skilled diplomat. His scholarship was rigorous and perceptive. For example, his books on Yugoslavia, Poland and Czechoslovakia established him as a leading authority on post-World War II Eastern Europe; his 1954 Danger in Kashmir is still considered a classic for its penetrating diplomatic analysis of a territorial dispute and armed conflict with implications for international security.

Today, the Josef Korbel School continues the work of its namesake and founder: offering a broad intellectual approach to the study of international affairs to practical idealists committed to the common good of an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world.