Fire Officers Management Institute (FOMI)
Northern Ireland Peace Builders Program
SIPA and The People’s Government of Guangdong Province (GDPTO) Executive Management Training Program
The EMPA Policy Forum
Rose Osborne Lecture
Expanded Research Efforts at the Picker Center
The Picker Center works with a select number of leading public and nonprofit organizations to design customized executive management training programs designed to immediately impact individual and organization performance. Our programs usually focus on change management and tools for innovation.
In recent years, we have provided programs in Algeria, China, Northern Ireland, Colombia and Singapore as well as training programs for the federal, state and local governments here in the United States.
Learn More about the Executive MPA Program
Visit us, sit in on classes and meet current students.
The application process for Fall 2008 admission begins March 1st with rolling admissions until July 15th (FINAL DEADLINE).
Contact the Picker Center for more information by email at empa@columbia.edu or by phone at 212-854-5124.
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Non Degree Programs
92nd Street Y Ford Fellows Program
Twenty-five community leaders from six nations are selected each year to participate in the three-week program in New York City. Topics covered include nonprofit management, fund-raising, strategic planning and strategic thinking, globalization, conflict resolution, self-assessment, resource mangement, media and external relations, and diversity and gender.
Fire Officers Management Institute (FOMI)
In partnership with Columbia Business School's Institute for Non-profit Management, the Picker Center is delivering a comprehensive, six week, in residence advanced management curriculum for senior officers of the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY). This will be the seventh FOMI class. Topics covered include strategic planning, political management, intergovernmental relations, communications, performance management, leadership, team building, project management, diversity and gender. Participants also work in small groups with a faculty advisor to produce an implementation program for FDNY strategic plan priorities.
Northern Ireland Peace Builders Program
Despite the best efforts of all parties involved, the Northern Ireland peace process continues to be fraught with uncertainties precipitated by decades of mutual distrust. To date, not effective vehicle has been devised to bridge the cultural, religious and political divide among the Northern Irish people at the grass roots level. It is our belief that a cross-cultural, university-based pilot program of classroom and fieldwork in the United States could be an effective method of building trust and peacekeeping skills.
In the fall of 2002, ten community leaders and ten police personnel from Northern Ireland engaged in a six week experiment in learning about themselves, each other, New York City, innovative policing, community building and advanced management techniques. The institutional home of the program is the Picker Center for Executive Education in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Dr. William B. Eimicke, Director of the Center, manages the US side of the program. Dr. Francis Costello directs the Ireland-based part of the program.
A second group of 21 peace builders completed a four-week program in the fall of 2003. Participants spent the first and last weeks of the program in academic study at the Picker Center. Among the many distinguished presenters were former Senator George Mitchell, SIPA Dean Lisa Anderson, SIPA faculty, Columbia Business School faculty, representatives from the NYPD and Boston Police Department and a number of executives from community based organizations throughout the New York Metropolitan region. Participants also spent two weeks serving in community, working (whenever possible) as pairs of a community leader and a police officer. Among the 2003 sponsoring agencies were the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, The Hudson Guild Settlement House, Common Ground, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, The Morningside Alliance, the Educational Video Center and Westchester County Department of Social Services.
Participants continue their classroom work at the University of Ulster upon returning to Northern Ireland. And an alumni association of program participants is meeting periodically to strengthen the bonds formed during the program here. We hosted the fifth group of peace builders this past fall 2006. The sixth class is sceduled to begin in September 2007.
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Columbia University School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA)
and The People's Government of Guangdong Province (GDPTO) Executive Management Training Program
During the month of August 2006, the Picker Center of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University provided an Executive Management Training Program (GDPTO) for 35 senior local government officials from The People's Government of Guangdong Province this was the second year of the program.
Guangdong has a population of more than 78 million, the highest GDP of all Chinese provinces and is home to many multi-national companies. The province has 21 major cities, 121 county divisions and 1,710 townships.
SIPA provides GDPTO participants with 15 days of classroom instruction on topics that must be mastered by effective public managers, including strategic planning, financial management, human resources management, negotiation and conflict resolution, managing police and emergency services, innovative parks management, leadership, contracting and outsourcing management, performance management, communications and media relations, risk management, international finance and trade, US-China relations, public ethics and anti-corruption measures, managing technology and management innovation. All books and reading materials will be provided in English. Sequential translation will be provided for classroom sessions.
SIPA also provides faculty supported field investigations in New York City, the New York State capital of Albany and visits to important historical sites in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Meetings with New York City government officials, members of the Governor’s Office, the New York State Conference of Mayors, the Federal Reserve Bank, and visits to several major investment banks, the United Nations, several Business Improvement Districts and a number of New York City parks are on the agenda.
We are looking forward to a third year with this Program August 2007.
Southeast Asia Fellows Program
The Southeast Asia Fellows Program is a five-year effort to provide midcareer training for development professionals from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and China's Yunnan Province. Fellows spend a month at the Picker Center and then return to their organization with enhanced management and development skills. The program also equips participants with the skills for building a regional development.
Chinese Central Television
Columbia has a relationship with China's Central Television (CCTV), which partners with the University to work on media projects. Through SIPA, senior-level executives participate in a program that offers instruction in management, policy and the use of television media.
United Nations/UNDP
The Picker Center has provided and continues to provide a wide variety of seminars, training programs and materials, conference design and hosting services, and basic research for the United Nations and its sister agencies.
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Research and Policy Forums
The EMPA Alumni Policy Forum
The EMPA Alumni Forum, a student/alumni group for the EMPA Program, was created three years ago through the impetus of Kirsten Frivold and Jenna-Mandel Ricci, and other alumni of the program. Its mission is to enhance interaction and support the student experience; promote professional development; and facilitate social and policy-oriented events relating to public and international affairs and the activities of the Picker Center for Executive Education. The EMPA Policy Forum is an integral part of that mission.
The First Annual EMPA Policy Forum presented two policy issues--the New York City budget negotiation process and the nuts and bolts of introducing legislation in the United States Congress--to a packed house. The former topic was presented by two people who worked in City government and the latter by Michael Manganiello (EMPA '01), who described how he (and others) worked to bring the issue of stem cell research to Congress.
Last year, we wanted to highlight the EMPA Program by choosing a panel solely from the EMPA program. Each panelist presented a real-life policy issue from the public, private, and nonprofit perspectives, respectively; discuss the relevance of EMPA studies to his work; and then briefly answered questions from the audience.
The program this year is exciting and timely. Sean Andrews (EMPA '02), Executive Director Prospect Park YMCA, will speak about the YMCA's partnerships with private, nonprofit, and government agencies, including HBO (filming youth projects) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Maritime Association (to provide services to active seafarers). David Tsui (EMPA '01), Senior Lending Officer Private Client Services, Bank of New York, will speak about a recent project to renovate a Broadway theater that involved public/private partnerships, real estate development, incentives, and other types of financing; and Matthew Millea (EMPA '05), Director of Environmental Programs Office of the Governor of New York, will speak about the state budget from his role as director of environmental programs.
THIRD ANNUAL ROSE OSBORNE LECTURE 2006
Guest Speaker: Lisa Anderson
Co-sponsored by: The Picker Center for Executive Education and the EMPA Forum
The Rose Osborne Lecture honors the late Dr. Rose Osborne. Dr. Osborne received the Irving Friedman Award for her exceptional work during her residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In 1986 she joined the staff of Harvard Community Health Plan and worked in its Wellesley Center. Dr. Osborne later founded an all-women ob-gyn practice, Women Caring for Women, with offices in Beverly and Gloucester, Massachusetts. She also created a Menopause Center at Hunt Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts and lectured on the topic throughout the region. Perhaps more important than all of this, she raised four children: Nick, Emily, Molly and Annie.
David Osborne husband of Rose and author of numerous books and articles including The Price of Government and Reinvention Government. He was a close advisor to former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore on the National Performance Review. He delivered an inaugural lecture in 2003.
The second lecture was delivered by Elizabeth (Liz) Colton who currently works at the US Embassy in Iraq as the Embassy Spokesperson. She previously served as the Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Sudan. Colton also was Chief of the Public Diplomacy Section at the U.S. Embassy, in Algiers, Algeria and served as Political and Consular Officer at the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia. She was also Acting Consular Officer in the US Embassy in Bahrain. During her first tour in the Foreign Service, she was awarded a Superior Honor Award for her outreach and political reporting throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Last year's lecture was delivered by Lisa Anderson the sixth Dean to lead the School of International and Public Affairs, established in 1946. She has been on the faculty of Columbia since 1986 and, just prior to her appointment as Dean, served as Chair of the Political Science Department at Columbia.
Dean Anderson also served as Director of Columbia's Middle East Institute from 1990 to 1993. One of this country's most eminent scholars of the Middle East and North Africa, Dean Anderson's academic specialty is state formation and regime change. Author of The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980 (Princeton University Press, 1986), co-editor of The Origins of Arab Nationalism (Columbia University Press, 1991), and editor of Transitions to Democracy (Columbia University Press, 1999), she has written more than 35 scholarly articles. She has testified before the Foreign Relations Committees of both the House and the Senate, published commentary in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and appeared as an expert on the news programs of the major television and radio networks.
In addition to her responsibilities at Columbia, Dean Anderson sits on a number of boards, including the Social Science Research Council, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, and Human Rights Watch, where she also serves as Co-chair of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the editorial committee of Comparative Politics.
EMPA Forum Board Members:
Kirsten Frivold Co-Chair
Jenna Mandel-Ricci Co-Chair
Brigid Lang Vice Chair
Nick Humen Treasurer
Daniel Lipka Secretary
Krissy Sudano
Donna Sharp
Brian Kennedy
Hedahne Chung
Sarah Holloway
Kathleen Murray
Diego Samaniego
Angelica Aquino
Dorrette Brown
Rosendo Coello
Vielka Holness
Isabella Lupinski
Ted Bongiovanni
Elizabeth Mahoney
The EMPA Forum is comprised of Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) Executive Master of Public Policy and Administration (EMPA) students and alumni. Its mission is to enhance interaction and support the student experience; promote professional development; and facilitate social and policy-oriented events relating to public and international affairs and the activities of the Picker Center for Executive Education.
Picker Center Faculty and Administration:
William Eimicke, Director
Arvid Lukauskas, Director
Brian Carroll, Program Coordinator
Bismark Diaz, Administrative Assistant
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Expanded Research Efforts at the Picker Center
In the last year, the Picker Center has conducted research on placement programs for ex-offenders and welfare recipients, the use of information technology to improve public services, the New York City bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and strategies for increasing diversity in the Fire Department of the City of New York. The Center has also developed case studies on the Transitional Work Corporation, the Philadelphia Charter School initiative, the American Red Cross, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Postal Service. Executive Director William Eimicke will take public service leave in during the 2007-2008 academic year to serve as Deputy Commissioner for Strategic Planning and Policy in the New York City Fire Department.
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