Our History

The shield of the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs is described in heraldry — the centuries-old formal language used to blazon, or specify, a coat of arms — as: Quarterly, first and fourth argent an Armillary Proper, second and third Azure a Fess Argent. In plain terms: a shield divided into four quarters, with white fields in the top-left and bottom-right bearing gold armillary spheres, and blue fields in the top-right and bottom-left each crossed by a white horizontal band.

The colors and symbolism were chosen to visually represent navigation and the joining of disparate interests — qualities fundamental to cooperation in a global context.

[EMBEDDED VIDEO: “The Yale Jackson Shield: Design and symbolism explained https://youtu.be/myOT_PXwfwk?si=0Ph82SGX68-i8cmq  ]

The shield's division into quarters carries its own meaning, representing a balanced distribution of power among individuals, families, political alliances, or organizations — as in a marriage or other committed joint venture.

The primary quarters, first and fourth, display an armillary sphere: an ancient instrument developed independently in China and Greece in the fourth and third centuries BCE, respectively, and used throughout Europe and Asia into the early modern period. Armillary spheres modeled the apparent positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars relative to the Earth, offering solutions to problems of timekeeping, navigation, geometry, and astronomy — and serving as teaching tools in a geocentric understanding of the cosmos. On the Jackson School shield, they symbolize the range of complex issues the school addresses, and reference the work of nations, cultures, and organizations to understand their opportunities while confronting the practical challenges of a competitive and interdependent world.

The design of the second and third quarters is drawn from the international maritime signal flag for the letter "J" — for Jackson. That flag, by coincidence, is blue and white: the colors of Yale University. The horizontal band in these quarters evokes peace and perspective — the long view of the horizon over a calm sea.

Horchow Hall serves today as the central home of the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. The mansion was commissioned in 1859 by Pelatiah Webster Perit (1785–1864), a wealthy New York shipping merchant and former president of the New York Chamber of Commerce. Although Perit’s business interests were centered in New York City, he maintained strong ties to New Haven and selected the prominent architect Sidney Mason Stone to design his residence on Hillhouse Avenue. Stone created a grand Italian Villa–style mansion with strong Renaissance Revival influences, using brown stucco and ornate decorative details.

Completed around 1860, the house quickly became notable for its architectural sophistication. Distinctive elements included elaborate scroll brackets supporting the window pediments, a low hipped roof with projecting cornices, a cupola, and an elegant front entry porch with paired Corinthian columns framing a semicircular arched doorway decorated with carved rope moldings. The design closely resembled Stone’s earlier Ezekiel Trowbridge House in New Haven and remains one of the few surviving examples of Stone’s residential work.

Perit occupied the mansion for only a short period before his death in 1864. His family continued living there into the 1880s, when the property was purchased by businessman Henry L. Hotchkiss. Sometime after 1888, the Hotchkiss family added a large Tudor-style library to the rear of the building, carefully designed to blend with the original exterior architecture.

In 1932, Yale University acquired the property as part of its broader expansion into the Hillhouse Avenue Historic District. Like many neighboring mansions, the building transitioned from a private residence into an academic and institutional space. Over the decades, Yale used the structure for faculty residences, offices and laboratories for the Peabody Museum of Natural History, and administrative offices for the School of Management.

A major transformation occurred in 2013, when the building became the home of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs following a major gift from John and Susan Jackson. Extensive renovations preserved the mansion’s historic character while adapting it for modern academic use. Interior updates included new flooring, lighting, meeting spaces, restrooms, and event facilities, while exterior restoration focused on preserving the porch, window trim, and roof cornices.

We thank history major Baala Shakya ’28 for researching and writing our building histories.

At the crossroads of Yale’s Hillhouse Avenue corridor, T.M. Evans Hall stands as one of the avenue’s oldest and most architecturally distinctive residences. The building reflects the experimental and eclectic architectural vision that helped transform Hillhouse Avenue into one of nineteenth-century America’s most celebrated residential streets.

The mansion was originally constructed in 1837 as the Elizabeth Apthorp House and designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the most influential American architects of the antebellum period. Davis played a defining role in shaping the architectural identity of Hillhouse Avenue, contributing several landmark homes to the district during its early development. Working within the broader vision established by Senator James Hillhouse, Davis helped create a streetscape that blended picturesque landscaping with architecturally ambitious residences, contributing to the avenue’s later reputation as one of the most beautiful streets in the United States.

Unlike the more strictly classical Greek Revival houses that dominated the period, Davis described the Elizabeth Apthorp House as an “Etruscan Villa,” reflecting his fascination with romantic and European-inspired architectural forms. The three-story brick and stucco residence combined multiple stylistic influences into a highly original design. Its cubic massing, symmetrical façade, and flat-roofed entrance portico retained strong Greek Revival characteristics, while bracketed overhanging eaves, elongated paired windows, and decorative window hoods anticipated the rise of the Italian Villa style in American domestic architecture.

One of the building’s most unusual features was its Egyptian Revival-style front entry portico, a dramatic and exotic element that reflected the growing nineteenth-century American fascination with ancient civilizations and eclectic architectural experimentation. Davis, known for blending historical motifs into imaginative compositions, incorporated these details in ways that distinguished the house from neighboring residences on Hillhouse Avenue.

Over the decades, the building evolved through a series of additions and renovations that reflected changing tastes and practical needs. Wings were added to the northern and southern elevations, while a polygonal bay extended from the rear of the house. A solarium was later constructed above the original front portico, further altering the building’s silhouette. In 1928–29, fluted Corinthian pilasters were applied to the south elevation, adding yet another stylistic layer to the already eclectic structure. Recent renovations made the ground-floor classrooms accessible to people with disabilities, via ramps and enhanced landscaping in front of the buildings.

We thank Baala Shakya ’28 for researching and writing our building histories.

Steinbach Hall is one of the central buildings of the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, housing student-facing administrative offices, faculty offices, and a community lounge. Originally constructed as the John Pitkin Norton House, the building is an important architectural and intellectual landmark that reflects both the history of Yale and the evolution of nineteenth-century New Haven.

The mansion was built between 1848 and 1849 for John Pitkin Norton (1822–1852), a pioneering agricultural chemist, educator, and author whose work helped transform scientific education at Yale. Norton came from a prominent Connecticut family and was encouraged from an early age by his father, John Treadwell Norton, to study scientific farming methods. He pursued agricultural chemistry at Harvard and later in Edinburgh, Scotland, before joining Yale in 1846 as Professor of Agricultural Chemistry. His appointment was historically significant, contributing directly to the establishment of a separate science department at Yale and helping lay the foundation for modern scientific instruction at the university.

When he died at age 30 in 1852, Norton had already become a nationally recognized figure in agricultural science. Working alongside Benjamin Silliman Jr., he helped construct a chemical laboratory at Yale, attracted large numbers of students to the sciences, and advocated for Yale to offer a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Chemistry. Norton’s national reputation endured after his death, and he remains one of the few scientists depicted artistically at the United States Capitol, where a small statue of him appears on the Edmond Amateis bronze doors.

To design his family home on Hillhouse Avenue, Norton commissioned Henry Austin, one of New Haven’s most celebrated nineteenth-century architects. Often referred to as the “Father of Architects,” Austin was known for his eclectic and imaginative designs across New England, working in styles that ranged from Gothic Revival to Egyptian Revival and Italianate. Completed in 1849, the Norton House embodied the Italian Villa style, featuring asymmetrical massing, low-pitched roofs, bracketed cornices, and a projecting three-story tower. The building also incorporated Austin’s signature decorative flourishes, including ornate window surrounds, flat and semicircular arch motifs, and a dramatic Moorish-inspired recessed entry arcade. The design drew inspiration from the work of architect Alexander Jackson Davis while adapting Renaissance-inspired villa forms to New England.

Yale purchased the property in 1923, removing some of the original canopies, balconies, and railings as the building was adapted for institutional use. Over the twentieth century, the mansion housed the Yale School of Management before becoming part of the Jackson School of Global Affairs. A major remodeling in 1979, led by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, further modernized the building while preserving its historic character. 

We thank history major Baala Shakya ’28 for researching and writing our building histories.

46 Hillhouse Avenue is home to faculty offices, postdoctoral workspaces, and seminar rooms for the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Originally known as the Skinner-Trowbridge House, the mansion reflects nearly two centuries of New Haven history, evolving from a private residence into a center of academic and intellectual life.

The house was designed in 1831–32 by the celebrated architectural partnership of Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis and built by Nahum Hayward for Aaron N. Skinner, a Yale-trained lawyer and educator. Constructed in the Greek Revival style, the mansion was intended to complement the nearby Hillhouse Mansion and the broader vision of Hillhouse Avenue developed by Senator James Hillhouse, a Yale graduate who transformed the area into one of America’s earliest planned suburban streets.

Completed in 1839, the Skinner House quickly became one of the avenue’s grandest residences. Inspired partly by Decimus Burton’s Greenough Villa in London, the mansion featured a monumental two-story Ionic-columned portico, tall windows extending to the portico floor, and a stucco exterior scored to resemble blocks of dressed marble, giving the building the appearance of a classical temple. The original cruciform plan included one-story flanking pavilions that balanced the imposing central structure. Architectural historians later described the house as one of the finest examples of a Greek Revival suburban villa in the United States.

Aaron Skinner used the residence not only as a family home but also as the site of an exclusive private school for boys. He also served multiple terms in the Connecticut legislature and was mayor of New Haven from 1850 to 1854, becoming closely associated with the city’s civic and streetscape improvements.

After Skinner’s death, Judge William W. Boardman acquired the property in 1858 and commissioned major renovations, likely designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin. These changes transformed the house from its original cruciform form into a more cubic Italianate structure, adding second stories to the side wings and incorporating decorative Victorian window trim and elaborate interior moldings. In 1907, Rutherford Trowbridge expanded the mansion further with a sweeping stair hall, music room, enlarged dining room, and additional wings incorporating leaded glass windows salvaged from the family’s earlier home on the New Haven Green.

Yale acquired the property in 1978 after decades of varied use and deterioration. In 1999, the university undertook a major restoration to integrate the building into the School of Management campus. Architects carefully preserved historic details, including the grand staircase, fireplaces, crown moldings, pocket shutters, and inlaid oak and mahogany floors, while modernizing the structure for academic use. The ground-floor classrooms were made accessible to people with disabilities via ramps and enhanced landscaping in front of the buildings. Gardens and restored cast-iron fencing further reconnected the building to its historic setting. 

We thank history major Baala Shakya ’28 for researching and writing our building histories.

Yale's prominence in international and area studies has its roots in the earliest days of the University, with early missionaries trained at Yale who worked in Asia and around the world. Yale had one of the first faculty chairs in a non-Western language, Sanskrit, the root language of much of contemporary South Asia. The seeds of a proud Latin Americanist tradition were planted in the early 1900s, with the appointment of Hiram Bingham in 1906 as a professor of history and archaeology who subsequently brought Machu Picchu and Incan civilization to Western attention. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, Yale awarded one of the first U.S. Ph.D.s to an Asian-born scholar, Ken-ichi Asakawa, who later became a distinguished professor of Japanese history and languages at Yale, retiring in 1942. There was an institutional presence for world area studies at Yale as early as the 1930s. Paralleling area studies, Yale's scholarly strength in international relations grew in the interwar years with the then highly innovative and interdisciplinary Institute of International Studies. This institute, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation as well as corporate and alumni sponsors, established the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. program at Yale.

During World War II, these parallel academic streams were combined into a formidable set of training programs, geared largely to the needs of the U.S. military in the languages, culture, history, and economics of different parts of the world. After the war, these programs grew into a variety of freestanding interdisciplinary faculty councils with notable strengths in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Russia and Eastern Europe. These interdisciplinary councils were tied loosely to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences with resources overseen by the provost. Area studies and international relations efforts at Yale enjoyed support from major foundations, notably the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. Faculty with interests in Africa formed a council in 1958. With the passage of the National Defense Education Act in 1958, these language and area studies programs also received additional support from the federal government.

In the early 1960s the University created the Concilium on International and Area Studies with its first director, Professor Arthur Wright. The Concilium's main purpose was to coordinate and support the efforts of the area studies councils and the remaining activities of the former Institute of International Studies. Some of the councils had organized master's degrees in their respective area studies, and the Concilium's faculty director administered the remnants of faculty research support from the Institute and, supported by political science faculty with Institute Ph.D.s, also administered the interdisciplinary M.A. in International Relations. The Concilium's faculty director was appointed by the provost and, in turn, he nominated the faculty chairs of the constituent councils to be appointed by the dean of the Graduate School. In 1968 the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies faculty initiated its undergraduate major, following the majors that the older councils had established earlier. In the 1970s the Council on Middle East Studies and the Committee on Canadian Studies were established within the Concilium. By the middle of the 1970s the Council on Southeast Asia Studies had abandoned its master's program, unable to withstand the stresses associated with the U.S.-Vietnam War.

In the early 1980s the Concilium was further streamlined and given a new name, the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, with William Foltz, Heinz Professor of African Studies, as the first director. After a major fundraising campaign to fulfill matching obligations, YCIAS regularized its control over and procedures for allocating the eight Ford Foundation faculty chairs to various departments when vacancies occurred. With Title VI and alumni support, YCIAS also built up the M.A. in International Relations and was a founding member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs. Title VI also provided pivotal support for building council programs, and library and language resources, in African, Latin American, East Asian, and Russian and East European Studies. Council-based outreach programs also began to professionalize programs and staff, establishing a tradition of robust summer institutes for teachers. In 1989 the Fox International Fellowship began as a graduate and faculty exchange with Moscow State University.

In the early 1990s, under the directorship of Gaddis Smith, the Larned Professor of History, YCIAS launched the South Asian Studies Committee, several research initiatives, and a new international, interdisciplinary undergraduate major in International Studies. In 1994 the Fox Fellowship expanded to include graduate students to and from Yale and the University of Cambridge's Sidney Sussex College. Despite such vibrancy, being spread across campus in four different buildings constrained YCIAS from reaching its full potential. By the end of Professor Smith's directorship, YCIAS and the University had solved the space problem, and YCIAS moved into Henry R. Luce Hall in 1995, well positioned for dramatic growth of its programs. Made possible by an extraordinary gift from the Luce Foundation, Luce Hall provided 40,000 square feet of class and seminar space, an auditorium and a common room, and offices for staff, faculty, and visiting scholars. In 1995 the faculty created the International Affairs Council, comparable to the area studies councils, to provide interdisciplinary faculty oversight of the largest degree programs at YCIAS — the M.A. in International Relations and the International Studies undergraduate major — and begin to build a larger research and faculty-student community of interest focused on cross-cutting global and international themes and issues. Related research initiatives — International Security Studies and United Nations Studies — were incubated at YCIAS and spun off. With the growing presence in Yale College, the YCIAS director's appointment was shifted to the president at the recommendation of the provost; in turn, the faculty chairs of the constituent councils were appointed by the provost at the recommendation of the director.

Beginning in 1996, under the leadership of Gustav Ranis, Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics, YCIAS programs grew and deepened. They received strong support from Yale's president, Richard Levin, who had made the internationalization of Yale's research and curricula a top University priority. The international and area studies councils and their degree programs were revitalized, in part, by taking up the challenge of addressing problems comparatively across world regions. A new interdisciplinary undergraduate major in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration began, supported by American Studies and the International Affairs Council. YCIAS motivated and channeled faculty interest by enabling a variety of special interdisciplinary research programs and initiatives to address a range of emerging issues of global, international, and national scope including, for example, Crossing Borders, Globalization and Self-Determination, International Political Economy, European Union, Central Asia, Hellenic Studies, and the Center for the Study of Globalization.

The creation of the University Center for Language Studies (CLS) in 1998 provided YCIAS a strong partner. Its pedagogic support made it possible for YCIAS to directly offer languages — including Hindi, modern Greek, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Zulu, Swahili, and Yorùbá — and oversee language faculty through the councils. With Title VI and other resources, YCIAS and several councils partnered with CLS to launch Directed Independent Language Studies to enable students to learn critical languages not normally taught at Yale. The Fox Fellowship also expanded to include five new partners: Freie Universität Berlin, Fudan University in Shanghai, Institut d'études Politiques de Paris, El Colegio de México, and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Overall resources for YCIAS tripled in six years with yeoman fundraising efforts. Beyond faculty research, teaching programs, and publications, visiting scholar numbers grew from four to sixty per year, and student grants and fellowships for overseas research and study also expanded, especially for undergraduates. This growth spurt culminated in securing three additional YCIAS Interdisciplinary International Professorships.

In July 2004, Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science and chair of the department, succeeded Professor Ranis. He has challenged the faculty to build the research and teaching enterprises around three broad sets of issues: Identity, Security, and Conflict; Democracy: Past, Present, and Future; and Justice and Distribution: Local, National, Regional, Global. In fall 2004, Professor Alec Stone Sweet was appointed Leitner Professor of International Law, Politics, and International Studies, one of six international, interdisciplinary professorships sponsored by the MacMillan Center.

In 2005 three new universities joined the Fox International Fellowship Program: University of Cape Town in South Africa, Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, and Tel Aviv University in Israel. Beyond the core interdisciplinary research and teaching missions of the councils and research programs, YCIAS began to support policy-focused efforts, including the launch of a new cluster of policy courses to deepen the M.A. in International Relations. Six new graduate certificates were launched to enable students to tap the expertise of the YCIAS councils to ensure a solid international foundation in their specialized degrees from across the University. In recognition of YCIAS's University-wide role, the director's term was expanded to five years in parallel to deans of the colleges and schools at Yale, and the first YCIAS Bulletin was added to the University's official series.

In April 2006 YCIAS was renamed the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. With the naming, the University reaffirmed its commitment to strengthen and increase the senior faculty to sustain and continue building strength in international and area studies.

In spring 2007 the South Asian Studies major was unanimously accepted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and was added to Yale's list of majors in the fall of 2007. South Asian Studies — which became the first completely new major added to Yale's list since Cognitive Science in 1999 — is offered only as a second major and is administered by the MacMillan Center's Council on South Asian Studies. In fall 2007 two additional International Interdisciplinary Professorships were filled. Professor Giovanni Maggi was appointed Howard H. Leach Professor of Economics and International Affairs, and Thomas Pogge became Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs.

Less than one year after the South Asian Studies major was added to the curriculum, Yale College faculty members voted unanimously in February 2008 for the creation of a new, interdisciplinary Modern Middle East Studies major. Students could declare the major beginning in the 2008–2009 academic year. The Modern Middle East Studies major, spearheaded by members of the Council on Middle East Studies at the MacMillan Center and professors in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department, largely consists of existing courses offered in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Political Science, History, and other departments relating to the Middle East. The Universidade de São Paulo joined the Fox International Fellowship Program in 2008, bringing Yale and twelve elite institutions into a robust graduate student exchange. In fall 2008 the MacMillan Center concluded its search for the fourth International Interdisciplinary Professor in the person of Marcia Inhorn, the William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs. In fall 2009, Professor Steven Wilkinson was appointed Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, filling the fifth International Interdisciplinary Professorship of the MacMillan Center.

In August 2009 the MacMillan Center augmented its office and classroom space with the addition of two new facilities to allow for growth beyond its main home in Henry R. Luce Hall at 34 Hillhouse Avenue. Rosenkranz Hall, at 115 Prospect Street, was completed to provide an elegant new home for the Political Science department. Built in an L-shape around Luce Hall, Rosenkranz shares a courtyard with Luce, and its west wing houses several MacMillan Center programs. In addition, the MacMillan Center added a North Wing at 230 Prospect Street that accommodates several programs, the business office, and additional meeting space.

In April 2009 Yale received a gift to establish the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at the MacMillan Center. Under the leadership of James Levinsohn, Charles W. Goodyear Professor in Global Affairs, the institute was inaugurated in Rosenkranz Hall in the fall of 2010. It offers courses for students in all of Yale's schools who are interested in global affairs, and provides career advising services for any student who wishes to pursue a career in global public policy, diplomatic service, or with international agencies. The Jackson Institute also assumes responsibility for the University's core teaching programs in the area of contemporary international affairs, elevating the master's program in International Relations, which became Global Affairs in 2013, and deepening the undergraduate curriculum with a new stand-alone major in Global Affairs as of 2011–2012. The new major builds on the strong foundation provided for more than fifteen years by the International Studies major, which graduated its last class in May 2012. The Jackson Institute serves as a center for discussion through active programs of research, public lectures, and conferences. In July 2015 it transitioned from the MacMillan Center into an independent organization.

In July 2013 the MacMillan Center began to publish YaleGlobal Online, disseminating information about globalization to millions of readers around the world.

The Fox International Fellowship marked its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2013. In 2014 the University of Ghana became the thirteenth Fox Fellowship university partner, and the network has since expanded to include universities in Singapore (National University of Singapore), Canada (University of British Columbia), Australia (Australian National University/University of Melbourne), and Denmark (University of Copenhagen/Copenhagen Business School), bringing the total of world-renowned partner universities to nineteen.

The Political Violence FieldLab, devoted to the study of political violence and its effects on combatants and civilians in wartime, joined the MacMillan Center in 2015.

In March 2016 the MacMillan Center announced that it would guarantee an international research fellowship to all Ph.D. students in the humanities and social sciences in the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

In January 2017 the Program on Refugees, Forced Displacement, and Humanitarian Responses was launched by the MacMillan Center to promote rigorous interdisciplinary research and teaching grounded in the social sciences that can inform best practice and sound policy and have a meaningful impact on the lives of people affected by forced displacement.

The MacMillan Center added three programs under its auspices in 2018: the G-Econ project, Y-RISE, and the Translation Initiative. The purpose of the Geographically based Economic Data Project (G-Econ) is to develop a geophysically scaled economic data set. This data is merged with other important demographic and geophysical data and is helpful in environmental and economic studies of energy, environment, and global warming. The goal of the Yale Research Initiative on Innovation and Scale (Y-RISE) is to develop the science behind scaling up effective interventions, define that emerging research agenda, and scale-up a few promising interventions in the process. Y-RISE is building a new research network and will host academic network meetings and conferences, connect researchers to implementing partners, and make seed grants to develop new research. Its research will have direct policy implications and will publicize and advocate the policy lessons learned, advancing efforts to bring the most good to the most people. Finally, the Translation Initiative is an interdisciplinary program that promotes the study of translation's impact in various literary, social, political, business, legal, technological, and medical practices throughout the world. Working with linguists, librarians, computer scientists, business executives, and health care professionals, the Translation Initiative conducts research, presents educational programs, and encourages education in translation at Yale and beyond.

Source: "History of International and Area Studies at Yale," The MacMillan Center 2018–2019, pp. 16–19. Printed courtesy the MacMillan Center.